the field splits into several angry mobs trying to prove that their model is the obviously correct one
People do that because they think models might be true and not just useful. If they didn’t, they would be quite happy to co-exist, trading off predictive accuracy against complexity.
Or domain of applicability.
Truth leads to warfare in a way that usefulness dies not.
Well as stated above if we can simply do experiments, we can find out the answer
There’s no guarantee that everything is experimentally testable.
Worse still, the relationship between predictive accuracy and correspondence-to-reality is obscure. What happens if two theories are equally predictive, but imply different things about reality?
People do that because they think models might be true and not just useful. If they didn’t, they would be quite happy to co-exist, trading off predictive accuracy against complexity. Or domain of applicability.
Truth leads to warfare in a way that usefulness dies not.
There’s no guarantee that everything is experimentally testable.
Worse still, the relationship between predictive accuracy and correspondence-to-reality is obscure. What happens if two theories are equally predictive, but imply different things about reality?