Scaffolding means that use the model to make progress fast in the beginning, use it as the fire starter for finding your own better models, and then get rid of the simple model. Use as enabling constraint only.” Scaffolding They should come with a sticker on the box: “Only applicable in 90% of cases. Reductionist models aren’t usually presented to you that way. That enables you to see if you’re in a standard or exceptional situation, raises red flags if something is missing on your side, and helps you pick the right approach.
RECIPE FOR SCAFFOLDING HOW TO
This is how it becomes an enabling constraint then: The model offers a constraint on how to look at the problem. But because we’re more likely to be in the 90%, first we must look for problems in our information and in how we use the model. In the 10% case, we need to put in the work to find better, richer, more suitable models. If it works, great, if not, we are either in a 10% case or we are in a 90% case but we’re doing something wrong. To evaluate our case, we try to fit it into the model. Say a simple, reductionist model is expected to be good enough to cover 90% of cases. There are some important ingredients here, which are not part of the reductionist model itself, but are about how we use the model: scaffolding and enabling constraints. However (and this is where I’m changing my opinion) even reductionist models have their use 1, and not just for the teaching and spreading and applying part. When an exception doesn’t fit, it isn’t discarded but embraced. They accept exceptions as inputs to refine the model. Simple models that are not (overly) reductionist can also be spotted: they accept to be changed over time. Reductionist models have “5 easy steps” or “3 secrets” or a convenient mnemonic acronym like E.A.S.Y. Luckily, reductionism is often easy to spot. You end up with what looks like simple model but is actually a lossy model. Reductionism is looking at a problem space as a simple combination of parts, and ignoring hidden, but essential, complexities (eg in the relations between the parts). It’s not a joke, it’s a serious warning against reductionism. “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” (Einstein) is great advice, but the risk is that we forget the last bit. Because of that, they can bring value faster, and they can cause harm faster. Simple models are more appealing, easier to teach and spread and apply.
All models are wrong but simple models are more wrong than complex ones.
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