Researchers will often say things like this about techniques they couldn't get working as a way to explain away their failures. Often times some one will come a

Researchers will often say things like this about techniques they couldn't get working as a way to explain away their failures. Often times some one will come along a couple years later and do exactly what they claimed was impossible or untenable. I've heard people claim that improvements on their techniques are impossible, and that proposed improvements "won't work" when it in fact does (source: I've seen this happen in the research community more than once).