Why Model? | Santa Fe Institute

Argues that everyone models, some just do so explicitly and others fool themselves into thinking that they do not model. The author provides compelling reasons for why modelling is important and why people should engage in people. (good companion for Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow, very relevant for corporate environments). Core arguments... See more

But typically, it is an implicit model in which the assumptions are hidden, their internal consistency is untested, their logical consequences are unknown, and their relation to data is unknown . But, when you close your eyes and imagine an epidemic spreading, or any other social dynamic, you are running some model or other. It is just an implicit ... See more

From Ignorant Militance to Militant Ignorance: To me, however, the most important contribution of the modeling enterprise—as distinct from any particular model, or modeling technique—is that it enforces a scientific habit of mind , which I would characterize as one of militant ignorance—an iron commitment to "I don't know." That is, all scientific ... See more

The choice, then, is not whether to build models; it's whether to build explicit ones. In explicit models, assumptions are laid out in detail, so we can study exactly what they entail. On these assumptions, this sort of thing happens. When you alter the assumptions that is what happens. By writing explicit models, you let others replicate your resu... See more

This is why science, as a mode of inquiry, is fundamentally antithetical to all monolithic intellectual systems. In a beautiful essay, Feynman (1999) talks about the hard-won "freedom to doubt." It was born of a long and brutal struggle, and is essential to a functioning democracy. Intellectuals have a solemn duty to doubt, and to teach doubt. Educ... See more

Sixteen Reasons Other Than Prediction to Build Models But, more to the point, I can quickly think of 16 reasons other than prediction (at least in this bald sense) to build a model. In the space afforded, I cannot discuss all of these, and some have been treated en passant above. But, off the top of my head, and in no particular order, such modelin... See more