Even wildly unrealistic models can yield genuine insight into complex systems

Evidence

On the road to discovering the structure of DNA, Watson and Crick drew on many tools. Perhaps the most iconic of these was a set of glorified Tinkertoys they used to represent various atoms and the electrical bonds between them. These building blocks allowed Watson and Crick to test hypotheses about the feasibility of diverse molecular structures. … In most ways, the structures they built were nothing like molecules. The pieces were hundreds of millions times bigger than atoms, and they were painted various colors, which atoms decidedly are not. Electron structure was represented by sticks poking out of balls at different angles. And yet, by experimenting with these blocks, Watson and Crick managed to extract crucial insights into the real structure of DNA. — Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age, 176

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the concept of scientific modeling — simplified tractable systems manipulated to learn about messier real ones — as embodied by Watson and Crick’s building blocks.
• XREF: connects to: Computer simulation can test hypotheses about large-scale social learning — Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age: How False…, 47; Training models on absurd datasets exposes AI’s true capabilities — , The Braided Reading EPUB: 5-Year…, 1863

Broader Connections

• Training models on absurd datasets exposes AI’s true capabilities #exemplifies (0.82) — , The Braided Reading EPUB, 1863