Scientific Models in Philosophy of Science

8 Representation

T    of representation concerning scientific models is relatively recent in the philosophy of science. Broadly speaking, the topic belongs to the context of the debate about scientific realism. Is the real world the way that science portrays it? This question used to be addressed to scientific theories, but as we have seen, the way theories and models are understood has shifted considerably (see chapter 6). When it is said that a model represents something, then this is taken to mean, roughly, that the model tells us what the phenomenon that is the subject of the model is like. That there are considerable difficulties with this approach is the topic of later sections in this chapter. In section 8.1, I begin with scientists’ views on how models relate to reality. Section 8.2 approaches the same topic from the philosophical perspective. One of the major issues is that models often make false claims about the world, another that representation is not necessarily linked to any form of resemblance. In section 8.3, I consider how one could talk of truth and falsity in the context of models and what ramifications this talk has. Under which conditions can we think of models as representing phenomena? Having laid out my own analysis of representation in models, I compare representation of models, in section 8.4, to the analysis of representation in art. Whether 177 S C IENTIFIC M OD E L S M EC H ANIC AL MOD EL S AN AL OGY THEORIE S PARAD IGM S AND M ETAPH ORS THE S EM ANTIC VIE W AND THE S TUDY OF SC IEN TIFIC PR ACTIC E PH EN OM EN A , DATA , AND DATA MODE L S REPRE SE NTATION CONCL USION 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Bailer CH8:Layout 1 7/5/09 2:38 PM Page 177 representation can be interpreted as an identity of structure of model and phenomenon is examined in section 8.5. Section 8.6 contains the conclusion. The result of my analysis is, rather than a fully fledged account of representation, an account of the constraints that apply to models representing. 8.1 How Models Relate to Reality First I turn once more to quotations from the interviews on models to document how scientists view the relationship between models and reality (see chapter 1; Bailer-Jones 2002a). There is a distinct understanding among the scientists interviewed that by developing models and testing them it is possible to get closer to what the “real thing” is like. Particle physicist Robert Lambourne clearly expresses such a realism: And I come from a rather different perspective, different school, that would take the attitude that physics was actually probing reality and modelling was part of that process. And although I couldn’t justify the statement, I would like to think that physicists were closing in on reality and not merely forming a model that reflected part of reality. Robert Lambourne, particle physicist At the same time, Lambourne acknowledges that there is no way of knowing whether a model really matches reality, despite the intuition that it is possible to come closer and closer to reality: Inside many physicists there is a feeling that somehow we are dealing with reality, but there is no principle for establishing that’s the truth. There is nothing you can adduce that will show that you are dealing with reality, rather than a model of reality that accords with various experimental points of contact with what’s really out there. Robert Lambourne, particle physicist This is the general point that there can be no proof of realism nor antirealism, merely arguments that might favor one or the other. 178 Representation Bailer CH8:Layout 1 7/5/09 2:38 PM Page 178 Chemist and historian of chemistry Colin Russell qualifies what he means by realism. He makes the point that models may have relationships accurately as they are in reality, yet that it may be possible that a model is accurate in one sense, but not in another—for example, when a three-dimensional molecule is modeled in two dimensions. A model may give the bonds in a molecule correctly but perhaps not the spatial configuration of the atoms. So one might say that a model “conforms to reality” in certain respects. It follows that...