I like your analogy. To offer my own anecdote: In pure/theoretical Chemistry you conveniently ignore in-situ solvation effects to think about mechanisms of the

I like your analogy. To offer my own anecdote: In pure/theoretical Chemistry you conveniently ignore in-situ solvation effects to think about mechanisms of the organic reaction. Then in the real world, you can't replicate someone else's paper because of humidity differences between your lab and the author's.