Big Differences Between Facts and Models

Not too long ago, we looked at how scientists and others use phylogenetic diagrams as facts, but they are nothing of the kind. They are hypotheses — ideas — illustrating what people who were not there think may have happened in the distant past.

Scientists are fond of models. They can be useful in making predictions about the future or as speculations about the past. Biblical creationists have models about the Genesis Flood and other things. Like phylogenetic drawings, models are not facts despite how they are often presented.

Model airplane, Unsplash / William Hadley

Weather reports about hurricanes use models, and it is not uncommon to see vastly different paths of hurricanes projected because the models did not agree. Indeed, one scientist tried to use competing computer models to discover unusual formations on the moon. It did not go well. Instead of reaching a happy harmony, things became more muddled.

As it is with artificial intelligence, computer modeling is highly dependent on programming. Programming means programmers. Programmers are people who have flaws, skills, education, biases, and assumptions. The scientists use software by people who do not understand the sciences for which the models are developed. Believers in universal common descent misuse models in their efforts to deny the Creator and support evolution.

Computer models are useful tools in many branches of science. Through models, astronomers envision the nature of the interiors of stars and planets, meteorologists predict the paths of hurricanes, and geophysicists predict the impacts of changing ocean currents.

But models are not the same as realities: they are only simulations of realities. The complexity of many phenomena, such as historical and future climate, challenge simulation. The reliability of computer models depends on the accuracy and completeness of empirical data used as input to the models, on the applicability of equations used, and on their track record of congruence with observational data.

The rest of the article is located at "Models are not Facts."