Simplified models: a different perspective on models as mediators

Abstract

We introduce a novel point of view on the "models as mediators" framework in order to emphasize certain important epistemological questions about models in science which have so far been little investigated. To illustrate how this perspective can help answer these kinds of questions, we explore the use of simplified models in high energy physics research beyond the Standard Model. We show in detail how the construction of simplified models is grounded in the need to mitigate pressing epistemic problems concerning the uncertainty inherent in the present theoretical and experimental contexts.

Jump ship, shift gears, or just keep on chugging: Assessing the responses to tensions between theory and evidence in contemporary cosmology

“…In particular, the arguments offered here do not speak against the value of certain minimal models, simplified models, and fictions in some scientific contexts and for some scientific purposes as articulated in the philosophy of science literature on modeling and idealization (see e.g. Batterman & Rice 2014;McCoy & Massimi 2018;Anderl 2018;Suárez 2010 ). Rather, the position we have aimed to defend is the local one: with respect to the present small-scale challenges in cosmology, there happen to be good reasons to add more realistic details into the models at this juncture.…”

Pure Process Realism: The Unification of Realism and Empiricism

“…We find many many cases where scientific models are not only strictly false, but essentially so. That is, we often idealize and abstract in our models extensively, in virtue of which our models are explanatory (Bokulich 2009(Bokulich , 2011(Bokulich , 2016Cartwright 2010;Potochnik 2020), exploratory (Shech and Gelfert forthcoming, McCoy and Massimi 2017, Morrison 1999, and empirically supported (Potochnik 2020, Bokulich andParker 2021). Moreover, idealizations and other fictional elements enable models to be contextualized to their pragmatic goals and the communities by which they are used (all above, Liu 2004).…”

Perspectival Modeling

“…A currently popular methodology resorts to simplified models (see McCoy and Massimi 2017). Let us consider the following recent instructive example coming from the CMS experiment at CERN, where searches concentrate on the possible production of the so-called lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP)-for example, the neutralino 1 0 .…”