All Models Are Wrong, but Useful Models Reveal Their Limits: Constrained Understanding as an Antidote to Scientific Self-Deception
Note
Soto, FA. (2026). All Models Are Wrong, but Useful Models Reveal Their Limits: Constrained Understanding as an Antidote to Scientific Self-Deception
. 10.1007/s42113-026-00304-9
Soto, FA. (2026). All Models Are Wrong, but Useful Models Reveal Their Limits: Constrained Understanding as an Antidote to Scientific Self-Deception
. 10.1007/s42113-026-00304-9
Scientific understanding in modern science is often mediated by formal models rather than verbal theories. Performing valid inference within such models constitutes genuine understanding expressed in their formal language, even when it cannot be fully translated into intuitive verbal explanation. Predictive success can create unwarranted confidence, but this does not imply that understanding is illusory. Rather, it reflects the constrained nature of inference from observable data. Models provide real understanding when their structure captures structure in the world, and progress depends on identifying the limits of that correspondence. The central problem is therefore not illusion but self-deception, arising when incentive structures discourage explicit recognition of inferential limits. Scientific progress is best advanced by cultivating practices that accelerate the discovery, criticism, and communication of those limits.
