His eyes were wide open and he had a grin on his face, but he was as dead as doornail.» (bookpage.com)
I suppose in the abstract this would be dull as doornails if not unhelpful, and so probably it's best to explain it with examples and in the context of climate modeling, but I wanted to describe it in the abstract, just because I think what keeps a lot of people from appreciating climate science (or even why it's hard to appreciate) has to do with very basic ideas about not just «the scientific process» but with the narrower or perhaps more easily describable process of modeling. (realclimate.org)
If I tried that now, I'd be as dead as a doornail. (redeeminggod.com)