The Rigor Of Science
In that empire, the art of cartography achieved such perfection that the map of a single province occupied an entire city; and the map of the empire, an entire province. Over time, these excessive maps no longer satisfied, and the colleges of cartographers created a map of the empire that was the size of the empire itself and coincided precisely with it. Less devoted to the study of cartography, the following generations understood that this vast map was useless and, not without impiety, abandoned it to the inclemencies of the sun and the winters. In the deserts of the west, fragmented ruins of the map still endure, inhabited by animals and beggars; in the entire country, there remains no other relic of the geographical disciplines. (Jorge Luis Borges, Del rigor de la ciencia).
I always liked the idea of viewing science as a map of reality. Maps are useful because they remove the unnecessary. A map as big and detailed as the territory would be worthless, as it cannot be used. It is the same thing with science. The simplification of reality to make it understandable for humans is a feature, as models of reality that are too complex for us to comprehend are of no use.
The limitation of the metaphor is that with a map we know we are simplifying and we know what has been simplified, but with science we don't really do. Maybe the universe is understandable by humans, or maybe it is not. We will do science either way.
I will like to say more, but my english is not good enough yet for complex reasoning. So, I'll leave it as it is.
Source: A blog that does not exist anymore called "La Petite Claudine". Most of my favorites blogs are dead now, but luckily I always locally save interesting articles.