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Reference Models: Using Models to Turn Data into Evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Teru Miyake
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Abstract

Reference models of the earth’s interior play an important role in the acquisition of knowledge about the earth’s interior and the earth as a whole. Such models are used as a sort of standard reference against which data are compared. I argue that the use of reference models merits more attention than it has gotten so far in the literature on models, for it is an example of a method of doing science that has a long and significant history, and a study of reference models could increase our understanding of this methodology.

Type
Models and Measurement
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 82 , Issue 5 , December 2015 , pp. 822 - 832
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

Much of the research for this article was done under Startup Grant No. 4080821 at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. I would like to thank Lina Jansson for helpful discussion. Some of the ideas in this article date back to research done at Stanford University, where I received the advice and encouragement of George Smith, Michael Friedman, Tom Ryckman, and Helen Longino. Finally, I would like to give special thanks to Pat Suppes, whose contributions are immeasurable.

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