Word: inexactness
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...late 20th century--in all the electronic entertainment available at the push of a remote-control button? The snap answer is, hell no, we don't. But that is not really true. Aesthetics, for all the millions of words that have been written on the subject, remains an inexact science. We cannot say why a painting once supposed to be by Rembrandt loses face when its connection with the master is disputed or disproved, even though it looks just the same as it did when we admired it before. Nor can we understand the sudden compulsion to look anew...
Economics is an inexact science. But that doesn't explain the misinformation in the popular press about the California economy...
...absence of any biological test, diagnosing ADHD is a rather inexact proposition. In most cases, it is a teacher who initiates the process by informing parents that their child is daydreaming in class, failing to complete assignments or driving everyone crazy with thoughtless behavior. "The problem is that the parent then goes to the family doctor, who writes a prescription for Ritalin and doesn't stop to think of the other possibilities," says child psychiatrist Larry Silver of Georgetown University Medical Center. To make a careful diagnosis, Silver argues, one must eliminate other explanations for the symptoms...
ENTOMBED WITH GOLD AND silver symbols of spiritual and temporal power, the Moche rulers of ancient Peru took their treasures, and their secrets, to the grave. Archaeologists studying extant murals, metalworks and ceramics could sketch an inexact portrait of the pre-Incan civilization that vanished around A.D. 800, but they were frustrated by the many remaining blank spaces. The absence of a written language meant there was no sure guide to lead them back to the lost culture...
...recovered-memory therapy insist that there is no scientific evidence for the reality of repression and that many, if not most, of the recovered-memory claims are false. Advocates have no doubts, citing studies on amnesia and clinical experience showing that repression is commonplace. Given that psychology is an inexact science, any resolution of the issue seems distant, at best...