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Comment by rootusrootus | Hacker News Reader

To be fair, they address exactly that point in the first few sentences.

I don't think the content which addresses the title is OP's point, just the fact that there have been numerous publications with this title or something similar.

I'm not sure what the suggestion is here. Scientists should really work harder at their jobs and simplify the real world to the point that a headline that somebody absent mindedly read a decade ago don't sound repetitive?

I think the suggestion is that we should use the word "complete" when we mean it. Presumably, unlike say a software project, there is an actual state of completion possible in sequencing the human genome. Why has that mark been supposedly met so many times over the past couple of decades, only to be called complete again a few years later? When is it actually complete? Does it even matter anymore?

What human endeavor could ever be considered complete? What you propose is not a useful definition of the word.

If somebody completes a version of software, are they not allowed to announce future versions? Is scientific understanding not allowed to advance and change? Such views of science, as fixed and unchanging, with rigid definitions of inherently fuzzy concepts, are inherently anti-science.

Smart and correct rebuttal.

We all need to be able to live with the notion of levels of completeness. This is biology—not engineering.

What is the precise definition of a filled glass of water?

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