When scientists need to explain difficult points of theory, illustration by hypothetical example - rather than by total … - Stephen Jay Gould

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Quote of the day

Let death be daily before your eyes, and you will never entertain any abject thought, nor too eagerly covet anything.

Stephen Jay Gould

When scientists need to explain difficult points of theory, illustration by hypothetical example - rather than by total abstraction - works well (perhaps indispensably) as a rhetorical device. Such cases do not function as speculations in the pejorative sense - as silly stories that provide insight into complex mechanisms - but rather as idealized illustrations to exemplify a difficult point of theory. (Other fields, like philosophy and the law, use such conjectural cases as a standard device.

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