Re:Inflated Bond Ratings Helped Spur the Financial Crisis. T...
by klodolph on Thursday August 08, 2019 @03:39AM
(#20642593)
The models are incomplete in chemistry, too, but that doesn’t make it “not a science”.
In general you must choose a model on some scale between “accurate but too complex to be useful” and “easy to use but too inaccurate”. In the middle, hopefully, lies some theory which is simple enough to use in analysis and accurate enough to have applications.
For example, you wouldn’t see a civil engineer design a bridge with quantum field theory. They would generally use a less accurate, incomplete model of materials physics. Something simple enough that they can parameterize and run simulations.
Science is there in order for us to understand the limitations of these theories. This is why you can still e.g. use Lewis diagrams and get work done. They didn’t become “not science” just because they are an incomplete model of how bonding works, but through scientific experiment we have an understanding of how useful the model is.
In general you must choose a model on some scale between “accurate but too complex to be useful” and “easy to use but too inaccurate”. In the middle, hopefully, lies some theory which is simple enough to use in analysis and accurate enough to have applications.
For example, you wouldn’t see a civil engineer design a bridge with quantum field theory. They would generally use a less accurate, incomplete model of materials physics. Something simple enough that they can parameterize and run simulations.
Science is there in order for us to understand the limitations of these theories. This is why you can still e.g. use Lewis diagrams and get work done. They didn’t become “not science” just because they are an incomplete model of how bonding works, but through scientific experiment we have an understanding of how useful the model is.