Scientific Models by Philip Gerlee & Torbjörn Lundh

Author:Philip Gerlee & Torbjörn Lundh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

All Models Are False, but Is Anything at Fault?

The well-known phrase:

All models are wrong, but some are useful.

that was coined by the statistician George E.P. Box26 is a good summary of the difficult question of the truthfulness of scientific models. All models contain simplifications and idealisations and are therefore strictly speaking false, but the way in which these simplifications are introduced makes the difference between a model that is useful and one that is not. To simply conclude that all models are false misses an important point, namely in what way they are false, and how this affects their usefulness. Below is a list, compiled by the philosopher of science William Wimsatt, that summarises all the different ways in which models can go wrong:27 1.A model may be of only very local applicability. This is a way of being false that occurs only if the model is more broadly applied to phenomena it was not intended to describe.

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