905 B
905 B
id, aliases, title, tags, dg-publish
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| Realism vs. Instrumentalism |
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Realism vs. Instrumentalism
Realism holds that the purpose of scientific research 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] Opinionated History of Mathematics, "Did Copernicus steal ideas from Islamic astronomers?" (pp.) Ptolemy's lunar model is "flawed" in that it inaccurately describes Luna's distance from Earth, however Ptolemy only ever used the model to predict eclipses, which the model does very well. The discrepancy is only a flaw from a realist perspective.