Never tell me social sciences are incomprehensible

... because they use "normal" words with specific and non-obvious meanings, especially not if you are claiming that natural/"hard" sciences don't. Because to me:

• "cold" means "under 800degC"
  
• "present" means anything from "today" to "1 January 1950" to "the last hundred thousand years"
  
• "recent" means "any time in the last 5 million years"
  
• "large variations" can encompass "approximately 5 parts per million"

This post brought to you by my having reached the stage of the day where I have a quiet helpless burying-head-in-hands hysteric upon meeting that last one in a paper I'm reading.