Modelers need not believe models are literally accurate for them to anchor a discipline.

Evidence

The purchase by Black, Scholes, and Merton of the National General warrants indicates that the theoretical commitments of the financial economists discussed here, strong as they were, did not always take the form of conviction that the field’s models were empirically entirely accurate. Some degree of conviction of verisimilitude is perhaps inevitable when a model becomes incorporated centrally into the work of a successful research specialty and researchers have a “shared sense of the group as having achieved a satisfactory, working routine” (Bloor 2004, pp. 24-25). — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 1111

Categorization

• XREF: This connects to the sociology-of-scientific-knowledge notion of ‘working routines’ (Bloor) and to Kuhn’s paradigms — a key scaffolding for the performativity thesis being developed here. — connects to: In simulation, models precede and engender facts rather than describing them. — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 62; Models are abandoned for availability of alternatives, not merely false predictions — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 514
• DEEPTHINKING: The idea that conviction of verisimilitude is not required for central research models is subtle and load-bearing for the whole performativity argument: commitment can be social/institutional rather than empirical.

Broader Connections

• In simulation, models precede and engender facts rather than describing them. #complicates (0.75) — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 62
• Models are abandoned for availability of alternatives, not merely false predictions #corroborates (0.72) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 514