Equilibrium and Understanding

I felt like I followed much of what Elgin was trying to describe in this chapter. Her justification of imperfect procedural epistemology to be used as a means to greater levels of understanding gives a method for actually using some of the truths gained after much hard work. Her idea of reflective equilibrium acting as a dynamic system that allows new information to reset the balance gives distinct value to information already gathered, even if we know it's wrong. She's right in saying that every single physics problem ever done at the high school level has been wrong since every force is not taken into account, but the understanding of the concepts is instead the goal, not the exact true value.
One thing with which I struggled to find a balance was the discussion she had about using imperfect procedural epistemology as a means to go higher. She basically had a "no pain, no gain" approach to scientific exploration and creating permanent tenability when she described the process on 127. I follow her point entirely at this juncture, as no greater good has ever been created by sticking to safe assumptions in regard to new evidence and detail. Indeed, risking being horrifically wrong in front of your scientific peers is a necessary evil of research. However, later on she describes the danger of pushing a system until it unravels can also result in having to completely redo the entire body of work. Sometimes pushing a system results in greater conformation of the understanding, sometimes it destroys it. Although I do agree that we should definitely in principle always push for a greater understanding and test the boundaries of what we assume to be correct, it calls into question the issue of practicality. I suppose using what information we have due to preliminary testing and using that to build to other levels of understanding is the best we can hope for, but the level at which we can say we're sure enough is a harder call. Although it is also the case the information gained on shaky grounds can also serve to back up or refute earlier info as well, since earlier inquiries being off doesn't necessarily mean other inquiries are also off. But then again, no pain, no gain.