there are no “core” principles

Here’s a great short excerpt from a really nice long post about the state of neuroscience:

I’m concerned about the strong tacit expectation many scientists seem to have that if one can observe a seemingly coherent, robust phenomenon at one level of analysis, there must also be a satisfying causal explanation for that phenomenon that (a) doesn’t require descending several levels of description and (b) is simple enough to fit in one’s head all at once. I don’t think there’s any good reason to expect such a thing. I worry that the perpetual search for models of reality simple enough to fit into our limited human heads is keeping many scientists on an intellectual treadmill, forever chasing after something that’s either already here–without us having realized it–or, alternatively, can never arrive. even in principle.

It captures neatly the idea that we are biassed about what counts as "understanding": we want a model small that’s enough to fit in our limited heads, and for it to have a simple clean structure.  Hey, it’s almost like we think there should be some sort of design principles for highly complex evolved systems!