N.
From william whewell, who in his 1840 synthesis
the philosophy of the inductive sciences
spoke of consilience
as a "jumping together" of knowledge by linking facts and theory
across disciplines to create a common groundwork of explanation.
In
design and analysis, a conservative model or a conservative assumption is one
that departs from accuracy in such a way that it reduces the chances of a
false-positive assessment of the feasibility of the system
in question. Conservative assumptions overestimate problems and underestimate
capabilities.
