zmVault/realism-vs-instrumentalism.md

id, aliases, tags, title

id	aliases	tags	title
		destiny/fleeting	Realism vs. Instrumentalism

Realism vs. Instrumentalism

Realism holds that the purpose of science is to describe the world as accurately as possible. Instrumentalism (anti-realism) holds that the purpose is to make accurate predictions.

[!quote] George E. P. Box, British statistician All models are wrong, but some are useful.

[!quote] Did Copernicus steal ideas from Islamic astronomers?, Opinionated History of Mathematics (pp.) Ptolemy's lunar model is "flawed" in that it inaccurately describes Luna's distance from Earth, however Ptolemy only ever uses the model to predict eclipses, which the model does very well. The discrepancy is only a flaw from a realist perspective.