"Though Model Land is easy to enter, it is not so easy to leave"

"The frameworks we use to interpret data take many different forms, and I am going to refer to all of them as models.

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The contribution of the model is to add relationships between data.

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the purpose of modelling relationships between data is to try to predict how we can take more effective actions in future in support of some overall goal. These are real-world questions informed by real-world data; and when they have answers at all, they have real-world answers. To find those answers, we have to go to Model Land.

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Within Model Land, the assumptions that you make in your model are literally true. The model is the Model Land reality.

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Model Land is a wonderful place. In Model Land, because all of our assumptions are true, we can really make progress on understanding our models and how they work. We can make predictions. 

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Model Land is not necessarily a deterministic place where everything is known. In Model Land, there can still be uncertainty about model outcomes.

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One premise of this book is that unquantifiable uncertainties are important, are ubiquitous, are potentially accessible to us and should figure in our decision-making - but that to make use of them we must understand the limitations of our models, acknowledge their political context, escape from Model Land and construct predictive statements that are about the real world.

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You cannot avoid Model Land by working only with data. Data, that is, measured quantities, do not speak for themselves: they are given meaning only through the context and framing provided by models. Nor can you avoid Model Land by working with purely conceptual models, theorising about dice rolls or string theories without reference to real data. Good data and good conceptual understanding can, though, help us to escape from Model Land and make our results relevant once more in the real world.

Escaping from Model Land

Though Model Land is easy to enter, it is not so easy to leave. Having constructed a beautiful, internally consistent model and a set of analysis methods that describe the model in detail, it can be emotionally difficult to acknowledge that the initial assumptions on which the whole thing is built are not literally true."

Trechos retirados de "Escape from Model Land" de Erica Thompson.