On Thu, May 30, 2013 at 7:08 AM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote:
If we abandon this rule, or if we call it "hand waving" as Gibbs does here, > progress in science will come to a halt. > I think there's been a simple misunderstanding of terms. As an amateur anthropologist of scientists, I gather that "hand waving" is a very useful term that has two senses -- in one sense it seems to mean quickly glossing over the outlines of a mechanism, but not really knowing how to connect the different pieces. This kind of hand waving can refer to a legitimate explanation but be lacking in some important details. In another, more common sense, hand waving seems to refer to disconnected ideas that are thrown together in such a way as to betray a basic lack of understanding of the details. Hand waving in this sense is to construct a meaningless string of syllables. "Word salad" seems to be a synonym for this latter sense. My hunch is that Mark had in mind something different than either of these two senses. Eric
