Reckoning with Continuum Idealizations: Some Lessons from Soil Hydrology.

In scientific modeling, continuum idealizations bridge scales but at the cost of fundamentally misrepresenting the microstructure of the system. This engenders a mystery. If continuum idealizations are dispensable in principle, this de-problematizes their representational inaccuracy, since continuum...

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Publicado en:Philosophy of Science Vol. 89; no. 2; pp. 319 - 337
Autor principal: Holmes, Travis
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Cambridge University Press Apr2022
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        atl: Reckoning with Continuum Idealizations: Some Lessons from Soil Hydrology.
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        au: Holmes, Travis
        affil: University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO, US
      su:
        Hydrology
        Soils
        Scientific method
        Scientific models
      sug:
        subj:
          Hydrology
          Soils
          Scientific method
          Scientific models
      ab: In scientific modeling, continuum idealizations bridge scales but at the cost of fundamentally misrepresenting the microstructure of the system. This engenders a mystery. If continuum idealizations are dispensable in principle, this de-problematizes their representational inaccuracy, since continuum properties reduce to lower-scale properties, but the mystery of how this reduction could be carried out endures. Alternatively, if continuum idealizations are indispensable in principle, this is consistent with their explanatory and predictive success but renders their representational inaccuracy mysterious. I argue for a deflationary solution, enlisting the applied scientific method of upscaling as demonstrated in a case from soil hydrology.
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