Comment by scoofy

A really interesting essay. I'm genuinely surprised the author didn't delve more into philosophy here. I think the biggest issue this essay illustrates is the inductive-deductive jump that modeling (especially mathematical modeling makes). That is, if the axioms we are using are correct, then the output of the model should reflect reality. This is very obviously not always the case, and because of the black swan problem (in a very real sense) we can never really know if it does.

Any time we wade into solipsism, however, I think it's important to remember that statistical analysis is a tool, not an arbiter of Truth. We are trying to exist in the mess of a world we live in, and we're going to be using every possible advanced tool we have in our arsenal to do that, and the standard model of science is probably the best tool we have. At the same time, we should often return to that solipsism an remember that where we can improve the model, we should.