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Full Idea
In science we treat the earth's surface as flat, we assume the ocean to be infinitely deep, we use continuous functions for what we know to be quantised, and we take liquids to be continuous despite atomic theory.
Gist of Idea
Science idealises the earth's surface, the oceans, continuities, and liquids
Source
Penelope Maddy (Naturalism in Mathematics [1997], II.6)
Book Ref
Maddy,Penelope: 'Naturalism in Mathematics' [OUP 2000], p.143
A Reaction
If fussy people like scientists do this all the time, how much more so must the confused multitude be doing the same thing all day?
| 9791 | Science is more accurate when it is prior and simpler, especially without magnitude or movement [Aristotle] |
| 22746 | If we try to conceive of a line with no breadth, it ceases to exist, and so has no length [Sext.Empiricus] |
| 10500 | No one denies that a line has width, but we can just attend to its length [Arnauld,A/Nicole,P] |
| 19591 | Desire for perfection is an illness, if it turns against what is imperfect [Novalis] |
| 22591 | We know perfection when we see what is imperfect [Murdoch] |
| 13600 | The point of models in theories is not to idealise, but to focus on what is essential [Ellis] |
| 15868 | Idealisation idealises all of a thing's properties, but abstraction leaves some of them out [Harré] |
| 18075 | Idealisation trades off accuracy for simplicity, in varying degrees [Kitcher] |
| 18206 | Science idealises the earth's surface, the oceans, continuities, and liquids [Maddy] |