Models and Reality: How Did Models Divorced from Reality Become Epistemologically Acceptable? — Asad Zaman (2020), International Econometric Review, 12(1), pp. 24–49. DOI: 10.33818/ier.748128.
Zaman examines how economic models can come to be assessed for consistency with formal principles rather than how well their assumptions and outputs describe the world. He traces philosophical shifts in the understanding of scientific knowledge that, in his account, help explain the acceptance of models whose relationship to empirical reality is not tested.
A paper about economics, but an interesting provocation for systems modellers: what is a model being judged against, and what observations would show that it isn’t useful for its intended purpose? The argument is the author’s; the paper does not demonstrate that all models lack empirical testing.
