Open Access Chapter from the 2023 Book: The Politics of Modelling: Numbers Between Science and Policy available at: https://academic.oup.com/book/46867 

Paper Abstract

There are reliable, empirically tested models for some phenomena. These are not the subject of this chapter. There are also many models with little or no scientific connection to what they purport to explain. Such ‘ungrounded’ models may be used because they are convenient,¹ customary, or familiar—even when the phenomena obviously violate the assumptions of the models.