It is not an unfair analogy, as it depicts the narrow focus of current science (though there has been some widening of thought, due to philosophical issues now becoming very entangled in physics). You are right that we COULD study the WHOLE system (not just the TV or computer electronics in the analogies) - that is exactly what I did (Five Potentially Dangerous Experiments)- and your comment allows me to claim to Luis that what I did WAS a necessary scientific enterprise to cover the WHOLE story.