On Models I

"To use an old analogy – and here we can hardly go except upon analogy – while the building of Nature is growing spontaneously from within, the model of it, which we seek to construct in our descriptive science, can only be constructed by means of scaffolding from without, a scaffolding of hypotheses. While in the real building all is continuous, in our model there are detached parts which must be connected with the rest by temporary ladders and passages, or which must be supported till we can see how to fill in the understructure. To give the hypotheses equal validity with facts is to confuse the temporary scaffolding with the building itself." (John H Poynting, 1899)

"[…] the more you see how strangely Nature behaves, the harder it is to make a model that explains how even the simplest phenomena actually work." (Richard P Feynman, "QED", 1985)

"No matter how beautiful the whole model may be, no matter how naturally it all seems to hang together now, if it disagrees with experiment, then it is wrong." (John Gribbin, "Almost Everyone’s Guide to Science", 1999)

"The purpose of models is not to fit the data but to sharpen the questions." (Samuel Karlin, 1983)

"I never satisfy myself until I can make a mechanical model of a thing. If I can make a mechanical model, I understand it." (Lord William T Kelvin, 1904)

"As we continue the great adventure of scientific exploration our models must often be recast. New laws and postulates will be required, while those that we already have must be broadened, extended and generalized in ways that we are now hardly able to surmise." (Gilbert Newton Lewis, "The Anatomy of Science", 1926)

"One good experiment is worth a thousand models […]; but one good model can make a thousand experiments unnecessary." (Evgenii I Volkov)

"We should always aim toward the economy of thought. It is not enough to give models for imitation. It must be possible to pass beyond these models and, in place of repeating their reasoning at length each time, to sum this in a few words." (Jules H Poincaré, 1909)

"No good model ever accounted for all the facts, since some data was bound to be misleading if not plain wrong." (James Dewey Watson)

"There are no surprising facts, only models that are surprised by facts; and if a model is surprised by the facts, it is no credit to that model." (Eliezer S Yudkowsky, "Quantum Explanations", 2008)