Quote Originally Posted by sparq View Post
I agree but those approximations are well understood to be just that, they were created with a purpose of simplifying things at the cost of loss of precision and their limits and conditions are usually well understood.

That cannot be always said about the other sciences and the level of fuzziness that they embrace.
Well, if you consider knowing what happens to your remainder as things tend to infinity "well understood", then yes I also agree with you

But never fear, other sciences have statistics!!! That wonderful branch of mathematics specifically designed to deal with and quantify scientific fuzziness of all descriptions!! Do we seek the glory? No! Do we receive the glory? No! But all praise the humble statistician, shuffling his way through turgid designs of varying levels of ineptitude, exploring data in varying states of decay and uncleanliness. His is a hard and unappreciated lot. He is often maligned, frequently defamed as a purveyor of damned lies. Yet without him, empiricism and science would descend into chaos faster than a child star in Hollywood (zing!).

James.