The Advantages of Models

They should allow us to ask questions.

Mortensen: “A good model is useful, then, in providing both general perspective

and particular vantage points from which to ask questions and to interpret the
raw stuff of observation. The more complex the subject matter—the more
amorphous and elusive the natural boundaries—the greater are the potential
rewards of model building.”

They should clarify complexity.

Models also clarify the structure of complex events. They do this, as Chapanis
(1961) noted, by reducing complexity to simpler, more familiar terms. . . Thus,
the aim of a model is not to ignore complexity or to explain it away, but rather to
give it order and coherence.

They should lead us to new discoveries-most important, according to Mortensen.

At another level models have heuristic value; that is, they provide new ways to
conceive of hypothetical ideas and relationships. This may well be their most
important function. With the aid of a good model, suddenly we are jarred from
conventional modes of thought. . . . Ideally, any model, even when studied
casually, should offer new insights and culminate in what can only be described
as an “Aha!” experience.