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2026-01-21 14:51:18 UTC
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Yogi Jaeger on Nostr: (5) Truer insights from false models: The point of a scientific model is not to be ...

(5) Truer insights from false models:

The point of a scientific model is not to be true, but to be false in interesting ways, leading to new questions and refinements - models that are wrong in different and more productive ways.

A perfect model would be pointless. It would be an evolutionary dead end in the history of science.

But models can be false in uninteresting ways: they can be plain wrong. Wimsatt lists the varieties of being wrong that are actually productive.