Levin 1999

Simon LEVIN

Fragile dominion – Complexity and the commons — (1999)

p.98     A simple model gives us not only something we can understand easily but something that is likely to be robust, not sensitive to irrelevant detail. The philosophy of developing simple models has borne sweet fruit elsewhere in science, especially in physics. Some dismiss the importation of such approaches into biology as « physics envy », but this caviling misses the point. The power of simple models is that they isolate the essential truths, stripping away details that obscure the relevant dynamic features. There is beauty in the diversity of nature; indeed, that is the subject of this book. But there is elegance and basic understanding to be found in the general patterns that emerge from consideration of that diversity, and it is the illumination of those patterns that turn anecdotal reporting into science.