Comment by Chris2048

Another way to say (I think) the same is:

The cost of analysis outweighs the benefit.

In this case the cost of counting food pellets versus the benefit of precision; but in software generally it is the high cost of (accurate) estimating versus the benefit of just getting on with it.

It is also, to some degree, the impossibility of estimating given that the task is given to someone who is an expert at writing code, not estimating. Coding expertise give insight into how long coding tasks take, but that it the least critical component of estimating a task. Writing code and seeing if it works is the best estimate; sometimes the prototype works first time, never always.

best example of this: https://xkcd.com/1445/