"Consistent with" doesn't help me make decisions on the farm

- Prometheus: Teats on a Bull Archives

My personal feeling is that "consistent with" is a hedge term that has about as much meaning, and carries about as much weight, as what we here in West Tennessee call a WAG, or wild ass guess. The number of things a thing can be "consistent with" is so large as to rob the expression of meaning, or communicative value. If my veterinarian looked at one of my cows and informed me that her swollen belly was "consistent with" her being pregnant, I'm not sure I'd find that of much value, as it's also "consistent with" a number of other things, some benign, some fatal.

"Consistent with" doesn't help me make decisions on the farm. With regards to the much more vast and consequential issue of global weather predictions, "consistent with" is to me about as useful as teats on a bull.