Several people have asked for references/more information on the philosophy of modeling, or more generally the “soft stuff” around modeling (rather than the math and computation).
- The references in my first set of lecture notes could be useful. In particular, Levins (1966) is a classic in the area; I (and others) disagree with it on many details, but it is an early attempt to get to grips with the tradeoffs between simple mathematical caricatures that attempt to capture generalities (strategic models) and detailed, complex models intended for prediction of particular systems (tactical models) [of course this 1-dimensional spectrum/dichotomization is again oversimplifying the situation; go read the paper …] It has been discussed and counter-argued and counter-counter-argued with over the years; Odenbaugh (2006) is one good starting point (since Levins 1966 has 1727 Google Scholar cites, just looking at downstream references isn’t a practical strategy).
- Peters (1991) is another ecological classic, arguing that ecologists should get away from mechanism and describe patterns instead.
- William Wimsatt is a philosopher of biology who has written a good deal about models, mostly in genetics and evolution
- A 2009 article in Wired magazine suggested “The End of Theory” in the age of big data (Anderson 2009). It’s interesting and relevant to modeling (e.g., the phenomenological vs. mechanistic debate again), but (I think) naive. Another noteworthy philosopher of science, Massimo Pigliucci, published a critique (Pigliucci 2009).
- Linguistics presents a nice case study of (non-dynamic) modeling. Historically linguistic models were heavily theoretical/mechanistic, guided by Noam Chomsky’s theories of universal grammar. With the advent of huge corpora (bodies of textual or spoken information) that could be analyzed and the computing power to analyze them, phenomenological models have made huge strides. Peter Norvig, director of research at Google, has a thoughtful discussion of these issues(Norvig 2012).
- the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Models In Science
- tangential, but Bolker (2014) discusses the philosophical underpinnings of the use of particular species as model systems in biology
More pointers are welcome!
References
Bolker, Jessica A. 2014. “Model Species in Evo-Devo: A Philosophical Perspective.” Evolution & Development 16 (1): 49–56. doi:10.1111/ede.12056.
Levins, R. 1966. “The Strategy of Model Building in Population Biology.” American Scientist 54: 421–31.
Odenbaugh, Jay. 2006. “The Strategy of “The Strategy of Model Building in Population Biology”.” Biology & Philosophy 21 (5): 607–21. doi:10.1007/s10539-006-9049-3.
Peters, Robert Henry. 1991. A Critique for Ecology. Cambridge University Press.
Pigliucci, Massimo. 2009. “The End of Theory in Science?” EMBO Reports 10 (6): 534–34. doi:10.1038/embor.2009.111.