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![]() | This article is written in British English with Oxford spelling (colour, realize, organization, analyse; note that -ize is used instead of -ise) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
The heading says "modelling", the article says "modeling". I think this should be consistent. As far as I know this is a discrepancy between American/British English? Are there any Wikipedia guidelines on this sort of situation? Eriatarka ( talk) 14:07, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
Would you like the UK to change its name as well, maybe "Grate Brittane" would that make you happy as you mount your bizarre campaign against England across various pages. And to correct you - the most common form of English in use is set to become so called "Chinglish" or "Singlish", as people in China and the Far East adapt the language to use as their common second tongue - so get your facts right before your stupid comments. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.195.241.99 ( talk) 17:12, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
The next list is in a recent change rather ("vernaggeld") made invisable (some google-rates have been added, with term written with "l"https://"ll"):
This list represents the titles of some 40 magazines about scientific modelling which offer all kinds of international forums. And every item in this list has an link to the place were more information can be found. - Mdd 14:02, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
Now this list was undressed for what reasons, but I restored it. This was not a see also section, where a list is given from all items in Wikipedia related to the subject. This is a lst of existing forms of scientific modelling in reality. Maybe I should have explained this better. However recently I started transforming this listing into text.. and I have got any further yet. I hope I have explained my actions. - Mdd 14:12, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
I have read every word of the Wikipedia:Piped link#Use, and it doesn't forbit what I did. And you are trying to turns things around here. This is a list of forms of scientific modelling... which I originally extracted from reality. I used the piped link to show, what Wikipedia has to offer about every type of modelling.
Now as I said, I'm in the process of writting a section about every type of modelling. If you state that several types have little or nothing to do with scientific modelling, I am very interested. Above is a list of 24 types. Could you tell me which types you mean and why? - Mdd 18:02, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
I started adding some google rates at the types of scientific modelling, which gives a first indication about how notable these subjects are. - Mdd 13:37, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Plagiarism!? At least in the "Overview" section, most of the text seems lifted directly by the paper "Modelling as a Discipline" by Silvert (2000). However, a citation only comes at the end of the section. No time to fix, but if anyone's able, it's on the to-do list. (April 11 2007) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.244.164.13 ( talk) 02:32, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
I removed the folowing examples.
These examples are removed because:
-- Marcel Douwe Dekker ( talk) 15:19, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
This is the worst written Wikipedia page I've ever seen. Look at this sentence, for example:
"Attempts to formalize the principles of the empirical sciences in the same way logicians axiomatize the principles of logic use a descriptive interpretation to model reality."
That's as bad as the worst gobbledygook I've seen come out of marketing departments, law firms, and the government. Writing like that is unworthy of Wikipedia and (especially) of the sciences.
I'm a writer, not a scientist, and I came here to answer a simple question: what's the difference between a scientific model and a scientific theory? I searched the relevant pages and I still don't know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.22.240.9 ( talk) 05:18, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Would it be appropriate to discuss how scientists generally view models as they describe the world? I have had this discussion with more than one layperson. What I mean to say is should we place more emphasis on the fact that all we work with are logical constructs, and the degree to which they predict the behavior of a system determine their usefulness, but quantifying the behavior of a system does not necessarily imply that you have actually explained the system.
An example might be the electron. No one can directly observe one, and so directly demonstrate its existence. However, we can say SUPPOSE there exists a thing which we will call an electron, and SUPPOSE it has these properties. Given these properties, what behavior would I observe in X situation? Then you set up the situation and compare measured and predicted results. After a while, we have developed a model of an electron that correlates with experiment so well that it is assumed that our model is a description of actual reality (I think this is a positivist view).
In my dealings with scientists, I've found that in general dealings, they apply a positivist view toward a lot of models (now I'm talking about ones that are generally agreed to be much more abstract than the electron example) such as electromagnetic fields. It is just simpler in day-to-day operations. However, if you try to pin a guy down, they generally start to squirm and acknowledge that they only accept the description for its ability to predict behavior, and won't go so far as to say that it is an actual explanation of reality.
I think it is important because this clarifies the role of modelling, and helps non-scientists understand how we can go from the plum-pudding model to the bohr model to more sophisticated models of atoms.
I may just start adding content, and if anyone has a problem, they can just edit or revert, though I would appreciate some collaberation
AndyHuston ( talk) 13:22, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
Intuitively (not a citable source), I got a real hard problem accepting Logical positivism because it's harsh matter-of-factual statements seems to imply that anything such as modelling is to be regarded as metaphysics and thereby unscientific/evil, since I'm a computer nerd (Nerd quota 93), it made me very angry. Of course, that's my impression, but what about other less political science philosophies? Said: Rursus ☻ 12:13, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
Marcel, and all: Here are some thoughts on this article. There was a question, if this article provides an overview of the modeling domain. I believe, the article provides a good overview, and could be further improved.
Here are few suggestions to improve the article:
Equilibrioception ( talk) 17:31, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Hi there,
THere is a problem for modelling and modeling on the english wikipedia... If I type, "Modelling" I get on the Model (person) page... but if I type "Modeling", I get into the Scientific modelling page... And as far as I know (but I'm not a native speaker) both modelling could be writen with one and two "l"... It's confusing... Do somebody have I idea to solve it ?
Thank's in advance, and thank's to wikipedia contributors which make it so efficient...
PhDam's —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dam s.vador ( talk • contribs) 00:54, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
I removed the follwoing section here:
This is about one very specific application of computer simulation, and hardly related to applying scientific modelling in general. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker ( talk) 21:50, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Due to possible violation of copyright, see WP:Copyvio, I have removed one or more section of this article for now.
I apologize for all inconvenience I have caused here, see also here. If you would like to assist in improving this article, please let me know. I can use all the help I can get. Thank you.
-- Marcel Douwe Dekker ( talk) 23:07, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Removed an incredibly bizarre (uncited) reference to sadomasochism, which read: Because "Modelling and Simulation" is frequently taught in male dominated undergraduate environments, this field of application is deliberately named "Modelling and Simulation", rather than "Simulation and Modelling", to avoid distractions which may arise due to any possible association with the negative connotations of S&M.[citation needed]. This adds nothing to the substance of the article, and is unsubstantiated.
RealityApologist ( talk) 00:25, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
This article or section appears to have been copied and pasted from various Wikipedia articles, possibly in violation of a copyright. This has occurred last year, May 11-13 2008, when I expanded this article.
I apologize for all inconvenience I have caused here, see also here. If you would like to assist in improving this article, please let me know. I can use all the help I can get. Thank you.
-- Marcel Douwe Dekker ( talk) 23:09, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
-- Mdd ( talk) 20:05, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
I began the model approach as an alternative to the scientific method when I studied education because I found that the scientific method does not work for middle and high school science students because they do not have the years necessary to invest in collecting enough data points to prove, for instance, a weather hypothesis. Invariably their findings were wrong. (As it happens, the weather models don't do much better!)
Modeling allows a generalized picture where individual components are not so important as to collapse the entire model if a few of them are misconceived. Also the only way to conceptualize a whole picture of the surrounding environment, or a whole system World view, is through modeling. This is necessary to keep the more conceptual students interested enough to want to be scientists. I write about that on the wikiversity and in this paper, where I also cover concept mapping (which may not be as valuable as originally advertised).
This kind of model certainly exists, and is simple in comparison to the models described in the article, yet is still scientific. It is especially useful for describing the kinds of conditions under which we all function, such in as economic or political environment. Getting people to embrace valid concepts is necessary for a functioning democracy (despite what many elitists may say), so this simplified kind of modeling may potentially be more influential than highly complex modeling, especially since the scientific modelers have been failing miserably of late.
I am going to do some research to attempt to describe simpler modeling in psychology, for the same democratic purpose I mention above, so average people can grasp the neurological layers that influence their lives and surrounding surrounding environments, basically, to get the best from life. This relates to the constructivist "community of knowledge," but from a more emotional approach where emotion is a kind of exceedingly complex interactive information, or knowledge.
From this research I may be able to provide support for inclusion of simpler education-based and more "pedestrian" scientific modeling into the article.-- John Bessa ( talk) 00:57, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Tell me what you think:
I think that the article can be improved by showing the reader where and why the act of making a model stands in relation to the creation of a theory.
In the West, many thinkers began with the assumption that humans see simply and directly what is going on. Unconsciously, early science was often based on analogies to human behavior. Humans go up trees because they want to (to get fruit, for instance). But smoke does not really go up because it wants to. Saying, "Smoke goes upward because that is what it wants/needs to do," models smoke behavior on human behavior.
The world often presents humans with situations that prompt us to make models. For instance, scientists discover that planets circle the sun. They ask themselves why the orbits are circular. They make a (mental or physical) model in which there is an anchor at the center (a physicist standing in his/her lab perhaps), a string, and a weight at the end. The spherical weight at the end of the string is a pretty good model for a planet. Swinging the weight around at the end of the string produces something very similar to a planetary orbit. But what, in nature, is the string? The model is helpful not only for helping us understand better what we already know from experience, but also for helping us ask further questions.
The essential change that occurred in Western science starting at about the time of Kant and Hume was the realization that the model is a creation of the human mind. A related idea is that successful theories are "useful fictions." The word "fiction" not only includes the idea of "not truth" or "not reality" but is appropriately also built on the root word meaning "to build." Models are creations of the workman in his shop. Fictions are the products of fiction writers. We are presumptuous when we make the easy assumption that because our model or our convenient fiction works we must therefore really know what is going on in the real world.
The lead of the article describes utilitarian models as we find them today, and it makes it appear that physics (and other parts of science) was here first, and models came along as an afterthought. So we have, e.g., climatology, we have equations, we have data, and then we make a model that predicts hurricanes or does something else that is really neat. But that description puts everything backwards. Humans started with storms and then realized that there were storm systems. They first built "models" (assume a set of boxes filled with air, each of which is heated on a variable basis by the sun...), then got equations to describe the interactions among the part of their models, then got in trouble with the real world because it did not perform as predicted, then made alterations to the math... It wasn't that we got a set of equations by some sudden insight and later decided to make models to show non-scientists how things work.
When humans got into quantum physics they discovered that the models we can build based on our everyday experience of ocean waves, rifle bullets, and the other elements of our common experiential world do not do a very adequate job of describing what is really happening. The map is not the territory. Humans create maps. Humans know the territory by means of maps. Tangential experiences of the territory force humans to modify their maps, but the distinction between map and thing mapped remains.
I'll see whether I can still find my copy of Philipp Frank's Philosophy of Science. It should be a good source for evidence on these points. P0M ( talk) 22:24, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
I really liked the following description in the overview that is as well copied in the article of "conceptual models": "Attempts to formalize the principles of the empirical sciences, use an interpretation to model reality, in the same way logicians axiomatize the principles of logic. The aim of these attempts is to construct a formal system that will not produce theoretical consequences that are contrary to what is found in reality. Predictions or other statements drawn from such a formal system mirror or map the real world only insofar as these scientific models are true.[4]"
I removed the following paragraph by User:Wingroras because it is off topic and interrupts the flow of the article. I suggest he/she posts it elsewhere, as it's still very interesting. 87.240.204.48 ( talk) 06:52, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
The term "assumption" is actually broader than its standard use, etymologically speaking. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and online Wiktionary indicate its Latin source as assumere ("accept, to take to oneself, adopt, usurp"), which is a conjunction of ad- ("to, towards, at") and sumere (to take). The root survives, with shifted meanings, in the Italian sumere and Spanish sumir. The first sense of "assume" in the OED is "to take unto (oneself), receive, accept, adopt.” The term was originally employed in religious contexts as in “to receive up into heaven,” especially “the reception of the Virgin Mary into heaven, with body preserved from corruption,” (1297 CE) but it was also simply used to refer to “receive into association” or “adopt into partnership.” Moreover, other senses of assumere included (i) “investing oneself with (an attribute), ” (ii) “to undertake” (especially in Law), (iii) “to take to oneself in appearance only, to pretend to possess,” and (iv) “to suppose a thing to be” (all senses from OED entry on “assume”; the OED entry for “assumption” is almost perfectly symmetrical in senses). Thus, "assumption" connotes other associations than the contemporary standard sense of “that which is assumed or taken for granted; a supposition, postulate” (only the 11th of 12 senses of “assumption,” and the 10th of 11 senses of “assume”) .
---
“See also“ “Grey box completion and validation“ has been removed from this and several other topics. Following advice from Wikipedia if there are no objections (please provide your name and reasons), I plan to reinstate the reference in a weeks time.
In scientific modelling the method of analysis should be considered (perhaps simulated to ensure feasibility) the removed reference covers techniques of potential application in scientific modelling. In particular most models are incomplete (i.e. a grey box) and thus need completion and validation. This reference seems to be within the appropriate content of the “See also” section see Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Layout#See_also_section. BillWhiten ( talk) 09:23, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
Reference reinstated SolidPhase thanks BillWhiten ( talk) 05:32, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
I don't understand the need for this section Model-based learning in education, with its picture. It just looks like and advertisement for BlendSpace (see the picture). Let's discuss the need for this part. -- Tavadyan ( talk) 14:57, 10 February 2019 (UTC)
iiii 119.152.159.130 ( talk) 17:37, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
There is a short bu reliably sourced article on the theory of modelling under General model theory that would make a good fit for this page. It could be described in context here, and the [[Scientific modelling page is itself quite short. Felix QW ( talk) 14:07, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
![]() | This ![]() It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() | This article is written in British English with Oxford spelling (colour, realize, organization, analyse; note that -ize is used instead of -ise) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
The heading says "modelling", the article says "modeling". I think this should be consistent. As far as I know this is a discrepancy between American/British English? Are there any Wikipedia guidelines on this sort of situation? Eriatarka ( talk) 14:07, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
Would you like the UK to change its name as well, maybe "Grate Brittane" would that make you happy as you mount your bizarre campaign against England across various pages. And to correct you - the most common form of English in use is set to become so called "Chinglish" or "Singlish", as people in China and the Far East adapt the language to use as their common second tongue - so get your facts right before your stupid comments. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.195.241.99 ( talk) 17:12, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
The next list is in a recent change rather ("vernaggeld") made invisable (some google-rates have been added, with term written with "l"https://"ll"):
This list represents the titles of some 40 magazines about scientific modelling which offer all kinds of international forums. And every item in this list has an link to the place were more information can be found. - Mdd 14:02, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
Now this list was undressed for what reasons, but I restored it. This was not a see also section, where a list is given from all items in Wikipedia related to the subject. This is a lst of existing forms of scientific modelling in reality. Maybe I should have explained this better. However recently I started transforming this listing into text.. and I have got any further yet. I hope I have explained my actions. - Mdd 14:12, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
I have read every word of the Wikipedia:Piped link#Use, and it doesn't forbit what I did. And you are trying to turns things around here. This is a list of forms of scientific modelling... which I originally extracted from reality. I used the piped link to show, what Wikipedia has to offer about every type of modelling.
Now as I said, I'm in the process of writting a section about every type of modelling. If you state that several types have little or nothing to do with scientific modelling, I am very interested. Above is a list of 24 types. Could you tell me which types you mean and why? - Mdd 18:02, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
I started adding some google rates at the types of scientific modelling, which gives a first indication about how notable these subjects are. - Mdd 13:37, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Plagiarism!? At least in the "Overview" section, most of the text seems lifted directly by the paper "Modelling as a Discipline" by Silvert (2000). However, a citation only comes at the end of the section. No time to fix, but if anyone's able, it's on the to-do list. (April 11 2007) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.244.164.13 ( talk) 02:32, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
I removed the folowing examples.
These examples are removed because:
-- Marcel Douwe Dekker ( talk) 15:19, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
This is the worst written Wikipedia page I've ever seen. Look at this sentence, for example:
"Attempts to formalize the principles of the empirical sciences in the same way logicians axiomatize the principles of logic use a descriptive interpretation to model reality."
That's as bad as the worst gobbledygook I've seen come out of marketing departments, law firms, and the government. Writing like that is unworthy of Wikipedia and (especially) of the sciences.
I'm a writer, not a scientist, and I came here to answer a simple question: what's the difference between a scientific model and a scientific theory? I searched the relevant pages and I still don't know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.22.240.9 ( talk) 05:18, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Would it be appropriate to discuss how scientists generally view models as they describe the world? I have had this discussion with more than one layperson. What I mean to say is should we place more emphasis on the fact that all we work with are logical constructs, and the degree to which they predict the behavior of a system determine their usefulness, but quantifying the behavior of a system does not necessarily imply that you have actually explained the system.
An example might be the electron. No one can directly observe one, and so directly demonstrate its existence. However, we can say SUPPOSE there exists a thing which we will call an electron, and SUPPOSE it has these properties. Given these properties, what behavior would I observe in X situation? Then you set up the situation and compare measured and predicted results. After a while, we have developed a model of an electron that correlates with experiment so well that it is assumed that our model is a description of actual reality (I think this is a positivist view).
In my dealings with scientists, I've found that in general dealings, they apply a positivist view toward a lot of models (now I'm talking about ones that are generally agreed to be much more abstract than the electron example) such as electromagnetic fields. It is just simpler in day-to-day operations. However, if you try to pin a guy down, they generally start to squirm and acknowledge that they only accept the description for its ability to predict behavior, and won't go so far as to say that it is an actual explanation of reality.
I think it is important because this clarifies the role of modelling, and helps non-scientists understand how we can go from the plum-pudding model to the bohr model to more sophisticated models of atoms.
I may just start adding content, and if anyone has a problem, they can just edit or revert, though I would appreciate some collaberation
AndyHuston ( talk) 13:22, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
Intuitively (not a citable source), I got a real hard problem accepting Logical positivism because it's harsh matter-of-factual statements seems to imply that anything such as modelling is to be regarded as metaphysics and thereby unscientific/evil, since I'm a computer nerd (Nerd quota 93), it made me very angry. Of course, that's my impression, but what about other less political science philosophies? Said: Rursus ☻ 12:13, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
Marcel, and all: Here are some thoughts on this article. There was a question, if this article provides an overview of the modeling domain. I believe, the article provides a good overview, and could be further improved.
Here are few suggestions to improve the article:
Equilibrioception ( talk) 17:31, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Hi there,
THere is a problem for modelling and modeling on the english wikipedia... If I type, "Modelling" I get on the Model (person) page... but if I type "Modeling", I get into the Scientific modelling page... And as far as I know (but I'm not a native speaker) both modelling could be writen with one and two "l"... It's confusing... Do somebody have I idea to solve it ?
Thank's in advance, and thank's to wikipedia contributors which make it so efficient...
PhDam's —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dam s.vador ( talk • contribs) 00:54, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
I removed the follwoing section here:
This is about one very specific application of computer simulation, and hardly related to applying scientific modelling in general. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker ( talk) 21:50, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Due to possible violation of copyright, see WP:Copyvio, I have removed one or more section of this article for now.
I apologize for all inconvenience I have caused here, see also here. If you would like to assist in improving this article, please let me know. I can use all the help I can get. Thank you.
-- Marcel Douwe Dekker ( talk) 23:07, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Removed an incredibly bizarre (uncited) reference to sadomasochism, which read: Because "Modelling and Simulation" is frequently taught in male dominated undergraduate environments, this field of application is deliberately named "Modelling and Simulation", rather than "Simulation and Modelling", to avoid distractions which may arise due to any possible association with the negative connotations of S&M.[citation needed]. This adds nothing to the substance of the article, and is unsubstantiated.
RealityApologist ( talk) 00:25, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
This article or section appears to have been copied and pasted from various Wikipedia articles, possibly in violation of a copyright. This has occurred last year, May 11-13 2008, when I expanded this article.
I apologize for all inconvenience I have caused here, see also here. If you would like to assist in improving this article, please let me know. I can use all the help I can get. Thank you.
-- Marcel Douwe Dekker ( talk) 23:09, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
-- Mdd ( talk) 20:05, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
I began the model approach as an alternative to the scientific method when I studied education because I found that the scientific method does not work for middle and high school science students because they do not have the years necessary to invest in collecting enough data points to prove, for instance, a weather hypothesis. Invariably their findings were wrong. (As it happens, the weather models don't do much better!)
Modeling allows a generalized picture where individual components are not so important as to collapse the entire model if a few of them are misconceived. Also the only way to conceptualize a whole picture of the surrounding environment, or a whole system World view, is through modeling. This is necessary to keep the more conceptual students interested enough to want to be scientists. I write about that on the wikiversity and in this paper, where I also cover concept mapping (which may not be as valuable as originally advertised).
This kind of model certainly exists, and is simple in comparison to the models described in the article, yet is still scientific. It is especially useful for describing the kinds of conditions under which we all function, such in as economic or political environment. Getting people to embrace valid concepts is necessary for a functioning democracy (despite what many elitists may say), so this simplified kind of modeling may potentially be more influential than highly complex modeling, especially since the scientific modelers have been failing miserably of late.
I am going to do some research to attempt to describe simpler modeling in psychology, for the same democratic purpose I mention above, so average people can grasp the neurological layers that influence their lives and surrounding surrounding environments, basically, to get the best from life. This relates to the constructivist "community of knowledge," but from a more emotional approach where emotion is a kind of exceedingly complex interactive information, or knowledge.
From this research I may be able to provide support for inclusion of simpler education-based and more "pedestrian" scientific modeling into the article.-- John Bessa ( talk) 00:57, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Tell me what you think:
I think that the article can be improved by showing the reader where and why the act of making a model stands in relation to the creation of a theory.
In the West, many thinkers began with the assumption that humans see simply and directly what is going on. Unconsciously, early science was often based on analogies to human behavior. Humans go up trees because they want to (to get fruit, for instance). But smoke does not really go up because it wants to. Saying, "Smoke goes upward because that is what it wants/needs to do," models smoke behavior on human behavior.
The world often presents humans with situations that prompt us to make models. For instance, scientists discover that planets circle the sun. They ask themselves why the orbits are circular. They make a (mental or physical) model in which there is an anchor at the center (a physicist standing in his/her lab perhaps), a string, and a weight at the end. The spherical weight at the end of the string is a pretty good model for a planet. Swinging the weight around at the end of the string produces something very similar to a planetary orbit. But what, in nature, is the string? The model is helpful not only for helping us understand better what we already know from experience, but also for helping us ask further questions.
The essential change that occurred in Western science starting at about the time of Kant and Hume was the realization that the model is a creation of the human mind. A related idea is that successful theories are "useful fictions." The word "fiction" not only includes the idea of "not truth" or "not reality" but is appropriately also built on the root word meaning "to build." Models are creations of the workman in his shop. Fictions are the products of fiction writers. We are presumptuous when we make the easy assumption that because our model or our convenient fiction works we must therefore really know what is going on in the real world.
The lead of the article describes utilitarian models as we find them today, and it makes it appear that physics (and other parts of science) was here first, and models came along as an afterthought. So we have, e.g., climatology, we have equations, we have data, and then we make a model that predicts hurricanes or does something else that is really neat. But that description puts everything backwards. Humans started with storms and then realized that there were storm systems. They first built "models" (assume a set of boxes filled with air, each of which is heated on a variable basis by the sun...), then got equations to describe the interactions among the part of their models, then got in trouble with the real world because it did not perform as predicted, then made alterations to the math... It wasn't that we got a set of equations by some sudden insight and later decided to make models to show non-scientists how things work.
When humans got into quantum physics they discovered that the models we can build based on our everyday experience of ocean waves, rifle bullets, and the other elements of our common experiential world do not do a very adequate job of describing what is really happening. The map is not the territory. Humans create maps. Humans know the territory by means of maps. Tangential experiences of the territory force humans to modify their maps, but the distinction between map and thing mapped remains.
I'll see whether I can still find my copy of Philipp Frank's Philosophy of Science. It should be a good source for evidence on these points. P0M ( talk) 22:24, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
I really liked the following description in the overview that is as well copied in the article of "conceptual models": "Attempts to formalize the principles of the empirical sciences, use an interpretation to model reality, in the same way logicians axiomatize the principles of logic. The aim of these attempts is to construct a formal system that will not produce theoretical consequences that are contrary to what is found in reality. Predictions or other statements drawn from such a formal system mirror or map the real world only insofar as these scientific models are true.[4]"
I removed the following paragraph by User:Wingroras because it is off topic and interrupts the flow of the article. I suggest he/she posts it elsewhere, as it's still very interesting. 87.240.204.48 ( talk) 06:52, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
The term "assumption" is actually broader than its standard use, etymologically speaking. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and online Wiktionary indicate its Latin source as assumere ("accept, to take to oneself, adopt, usurp"), which is a conjunction of ad- ("to, towards, at") and sumere (to take). The root survives, with shifted meanings, in the Italian sumere and Spanish sumir. The first sense of "assume" in the OED is "to take unto (oneself), receive, accept, adopt.” The term was originally employed in religious contexts as in “to receive up into heaven,” especially “the reception of the Virgin Mary into heaven, with body preserved from corruption,” (1297 CE) but it was also simply used to refer to “receive into association” or “adopt into partnership.” Moreover, other senses of assumere included (i) “investing oneself with (an attribute), ” (ii) “to undertake” (especially in Law), (iii) “to take to oneself in appearance only, to pretend to possess,” and (iv) “to suppose a thing to be” (all senses from OED entry on “assume”; the OED entry for “assumption” is almost perfectly symmetrical in senses). Thus, "assumption" connotes other associations than the contemporary standard sense of “that which is assumed or taken for granted; a supposition, postulate” (only the 11th of 12 senses of “assumption,” and the 10th of 11 senses of “assume”) .
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“See also“ “Grey box completion and validation“ has been removed from this and several other topics. Following advice from Wikipedia if there are no objections (please provide your name and reasons), I plan to reinstate the reference in a weeks time.
In scientific modelling the method of analysis should be considered (perhaps simulated to ensure feasibility) the removed reference covers techniques of potential application in scientific modelling. In particular most models are incomplete (i.e. a grey box) and thus need completion and validation. This reference seems to be within the appropriate content of the “See also” section see Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Layout#See_also_section. BillWhiten ( talk) 09:23, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
Reference reinstated SolidPhase thanks BillWhiten ( talk) 05:32, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
I don't understand the need for this section Model-based learning in education, with its picture. It just looks like and advertisement for BlendSpace (see the picture). Let's discuss the need for this part. -- Tavadyan ( talk) 14:57, 10 February 2019 (UTC)
iiii 119.152.159.130 ( talk) 17:37, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
There is a short bu reliably sourced article on the theory of modelling under General model theory that would make a good fit for this page. It could be described in context here, and the [[Scientific modelling page is itself quite short. Felix QW ( talk) 14:07, 20 January 2022 (UTC)