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All models are wrong, some are useful.
– Aphorism popularized by the statistician George Box
Sometimes the value of something lies more in the insight that can be gleaned from what it causes you to reflect on rather than its literal content. In other words, the capacity to spark inspiration is the crux of its worth, independently of the first-degree appraisal of its source material in and of itself.
This particularity is usually acknowledged overall when it comes to art, if not always respected. Many abstruse artworks chock-full of heterogeneous symbolism, concepts and contrivances which technically don't make much sense are still lauded. Enthusiasts will spend hours analyzing them and crafting theories regarding how they should be interpretedThis can apparently be a source of joy and stimulation for some, although I couldn't give you a personal testimony. The only thing they tend to inspire in me ranges from mild annoyance to ardent frustration. I enjoy my disjointed schizoid ramblings like any other, yet I prefer to insulate them within my conceptual intake, and keep focused and cohesive content for my artistic intake. But to each their own.. This is particularly frequent in the contemporary, experimental and esoteric genres.
In this post, however, we'll focus on more purely conceptual tools and frameworks. Seeing as their purpose is centered on dispensing knowledge rather than subjective experiences, their ability to describe and explain reality accurately is under much more scrutiny, whereas their inspirational potential tends to be overlooked. As such, those who struggle in the former but stand out in the latter often become a hotbed for controversy and altercation.
This is usually the case for fields of studies that have formally been branded or must frequently contend with the anathema of pseudoscience. Examples include astrology, psychoanalysis, personality typology systems, and grand sweeping theories of almost everything (e.g. Spiral Dynamics) which all suffer to varying extents from poor predictive power, unfalsifiable claims, and convoluted explanations for phenomena they've failed to prove in the first place, but can make for good introspective fuel depending on the individual and the circumstances.
Now, some might think, "Why should we even give them the time of day? If a conceptual framework can't stand up to the standard of the scientific method and its rigorous criteria, then to the academic gallows." Well, allow me to elaborate on why dismissing them wholesale might not always be the wisest option.
Sparks can be valuable in and of themselves
A flawed or limited theory may yet give rise to profound revelations. Its main perk might simply be to give us a new lens to look at things through. This can help us consider familiar things with a different perspective and come to realizations that wouldn't have been possible with our usual standpoint. Sometimes a fresh perspective or a new puzzle piece is all it takes to break free from being stuck.
The perks of apophenia
Pattern detection is one of the main functions of the human brain, and it can sometimes get a bit overzealous. Our tendency to perceive patterns independently of their relationship to reality is called apophenia. Seeing an animal in the clouds or a face inside an electrical socket, are both instances of pareidolia, one of its subsets.
Apophenia is often labeled as a cognitive bias which might drive some to hastily forsake it with a shuddering secular sign of the cross. A disproportionate reaction, in my humble opinion. I agree with Peter Baumann's perspective on the topic of biases. They're heuristics that have proven useful for our survival over thousands of years. However, they're quick shortcuts which means, although they tend to do the trick, they can also often lead us astray, especially as the world we interact with becomes increasingly intricate and nuanced. They shouldn't be completely shunned, although it's a good idea to keep them in mind as part of our self-calibration processes to ensure they aren't covertly warping our conclusions.
In the case of apophenia, despite its potential for paranoid delusions and conspiracy theories, it's also one of the chief engines of human creativity with its ability to connect the dots between disjointed pieces of data. Being showered under new concepts and outlooks sends it into overdrive which helps us come up with new associations, think outside the box, and pull our minds out of their complacent habits. Granted, there's no guarantee of the quality of these new ideas, but we can sift through and stress test them with time.
In light of this potential, concepts and devices that could only boast highly dubious predictive powers at best can instead make for excellent apophenia catalysts, which can come in handy to circumvent creative ruts. The oracles and random tables found in many tabletop role-playing games rules and supplements aim precisely to provide the benefits of the latter, yet even tools whose main claim to fame is more questionable, such as tarot divination decks, can also be repurposed to that end.
But let's get back to our main topic at hand, i.e. conceptual framework, with a brief case study.
The example of psychoanalysis
In addition to psychoanalysis' bickering with numerous other dogmas, its scientific status is also hotly contested. Despite this criticism, which I consider largely legitimate, it cannot be denied that Freud's work played a massive role in jumpstarting the field we now know as psychologyWhich admittedly trails a history fraught with prejudice, absurdity, and dreadful errors. and popularized the important concept of the subconscious mind.
Furthermore, when it comes to therapy, it still proves helpful for many even now. The Dodo bird verdict, a famous conundrum in clinical psychology, seems to indicate that there isn't much disparity in outcomes between different psychotherapies, based on comparative studies. This conclusion is pretty controversial and it has been nuanced with the passage of time, the proliferation of new therapy frameworks, and the compilation of research. Indeed, some therapeutic models work better for specific symptoms, while others can be shown to be net negatives. Nevertheless, these results suggest that all major clinical branches of psychotherapy, including psychoanalysis, are at least fairly efficient despite a somewhat uneven playing field.
According to its proponents, the Dodo bird verdict transpires because therapeutic models' commonalities outweigh their specificities. They usually cite the relationship between the therapist and their patient/client as the chief parallel among them all. Independently of the degree of accuracy of said hypothesis, it's hard to deny that therapy is a discipline where sparks and subjectivity play an important role. As such, it doesn't seem inconceivable that an imperfect theory of the psyche could still bear fruits if both patient and therapist find a way to connect through it. After all, people have a wild palette of varying affinities and it stands to reason that psychoanalysis will be a better match for some than more scientifically battle-tested frameworks like cognitive behavioral therapies.
As we can see with this example, it's important to be pretty explicit about the criteria we chose in order to make a meaningful evaluation.
Adequate assessment requires precise analysis
Comprehensive assessments are multidimensional
The primary purpose of appraisals is to be informative. Accordingly, any review worth its salt ought to be thorough. It should explore and weigh in on the different aspects of its target of inquiry before reducing its entire analysis—assuming there was one—into a single-sentence verdict. How do the components of its quarry hold up on their own, how do they fit together as a whole, and to what end?
If you were in the market for a laptop, you'd have many variables to consider. Some more objective, like its processing and graphical power, its memory and storage capacity, its size and weight, the resolution and color range of its screen, its compatibility with different software, its cost, etc. Some more subjective, like its looks, its ergonomics, its speed of use, its quality-to-cost ratio, etc.
You'd expect laptop reviews to cover most of these facets prior to giving a general impression and recommendation (or lack thereof). It would be completely within reason for the reviewer to give an accurate accounting of a model's poor quality in one regard whilst acknowledging its potential value in another area.
After all, worth depends on one's intended purpose and thus context. Why and how do you plan to make use of it? Without this background information, it's impossible to tell whether anything is a good fit. The same computer that would make a terrible choice for one use case (e.g. intensive gaming) could yet be a great option for another (e.g. office work on the move).
If I were to assert "this laptop is utter trash" without further qualifying the reasons behind my conclusion, I'd be baking in my personal subjective criteria into my verdict as if they were the only acceptable ones. Moreover, this statement would be useless for anyone else trying to make up their own mind on the topic.
Given this observation, let's circle back to our original topic, seeing as the evaluation of theories often tends to be tainted by obscured criteria and smuggled-in assumptions.
Full disclosure is paramount
Many seem to assume that the only point of theories is to model reality as precisely as possible, and thus judge them solely on that basis. However, that supposition is unsubstantiated. Of course, one could make the case that this should be their main aim, but that's not the only perspective on the matter. In fact, some would strongly disagree. Take this quote from Deleuze and Guattari, for instance.
Philosophy does not consist of knowing, and is not inspired by truth. Rather, it is categories like Interesting, Remarkable, and Important that determine its success or failure.
– Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari, What is Philosophy? (1994)
Besides, these criteria don't have to be mutually exclusive. One could value both truthfulness and insightfulness to varying extents in different contexts. I'm not making a case for one's supremacy over another. Rather, I'd like to stress that both of them matter.
In any case, when we're making a case for our opinion regarding a conceptual framework, it's essential to be transparent about the process through which it came about. Our preferences are often less universal and self-evident than we might think.
This standard of transparency should apply to advocates just as much as critics, if not more. It's perfectly legitimate to point out the discrepancies of a theory that claims to excel in a field it fails to deliver in. Yet the theory itself is not necessarily responsible for the way some of its proponents market it. Furthermore, something being inadequate in one regard doesn't entail its inadequacy in all regards. Say someone tried to sell you soap as a cure for cancer—which it isn't—that wouldn't mean that soap is useless in all contexts and should be scrubbed off the face of the earth.
Considering this potentially counterintuitive diversity in our standards of judgment, we can find an added benefit to favoring fair assessments that acknowledge both the strengths and weaknesses of philosophical systems in relation to specific stated goals. Namely, they empower us to better understand what others see in them and make a more persuasive case for our perspective.
Course correction requires adequate assessment
Different strokes for different folks
There is a staggering amount of diversity within humanity. People are different, they care about different things, and they flourish in different circumstances. Western culture tends to favor a one-size-fits-all mindset based on aggregates and averages. The latter is often too reductive to properly represent the intricacies of each individual's situation. When it comes to theories and beliefs, this has at least two consequences.
First, the same conceptual tool won't apply in the same way to everyone. What's a great fit for one person might be completely deficient for another, and conversely. Furthermore, inspiration is a pretty mysterious process. The same medium can spark very different things depending on who's interacting with it. What we consider a worse option might reap better results than a superior one in some cases.
This loops back to the example I mentioned earlier regarding the effectiveness of different psychotherapeutic models. The best exercise workout is the one you'll actually doIf you haven't found yours yet, you might be interested in this post I wrote about setting one up. and the best combination of psychotherapist and approach is the one you'll sufficiently vibe with to keep up long enough to reap some results. This affinity between belief systems and individuals should be taken into account.
Second, what someone else might be looking for in a conceptual system could vary greatly from us. Therefore, the reasons that underpin our verdicts may be largely irrelevant to them. What we view as an objectively dysfunctional toaster could flawlessly suit their needs if they're using it as a funky paperweight.
Since both what we consider to be a theory's purpose and level of proficiency may differ from our interlocutors, there's a good chance our rationale will fall flat by default. If we'd like to prompt them to reconsider their current assessment, we need to check whether our views share any overlap and make arguments geared to what they actually care about.
Understanding people's relationship to belief systems
There's a famous quote from Maya Angelou that goes "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." The same often applies to conceptual frameworks. A person's loyalty to a set of beliefs can have many different origins, including what it helped spark for them. It wouldn't be shocking for someone to have a soft spot for psychoanalysis after it helped them reach some significant breakthroughs and turn their life over, for instance.
Additionally, they might be exploiting a theory to fulfill some personal needs. There is a wide spectrum when it comes to the specific implementation of this use case, ranging from oblivious to self-aware, as well as from toxic to balanced. Regardless, we're missing out on important information if we ignore this subjective component of the equation.
In fact, we should pay extra attention to factoring in this data if we happen to be concerned about someone harboring harmful beliefs and we would like to broaden their perspective. If we can see both the valuable and the questionable, we will have an easier time acknowledging the former and disentangling it from the latter. It will make them less defensive and more likely to listen to our concerns.
We'll also improve our odds of success if we can suggest some more tenable and grounded alternatives to serve these previously mentioned needs rather than only offering to leave them out in the cold to fend for themselves once we've finished dismantling the best crutch they could find so far.
How, like I’ve said before, it’s essential to productive disagreement to acknowledge the legitimacy of the other party’s views before criticizing them.
The difference between judging conclusions by their arguments and judging arguments by their conclusions.
– John Nerst, A Deep Dive Into the Harris-Klein Controversy
Now that I've made a lengthy case for being more tolerant of ragged theories and eccentric views, let's address a couple of legitimate objections and caveats.
Some things take precedence on sparks
Denial & dishonesty
An endowment for generating tasty sparks shouldn't serve as a catch-all Get Out of Jail Free card for doctrines. As was briefly covered previously, one such case is when it is supplemented with a rivaled flair for false advertising. In my opinion, a knack for insights is but a knick-knackI'll assume no responsibility for any earworm inducement or cravings for a Knacki snack. And I'm not sorry. in comparison to a backbone of integrity in bad nick. Consequently, it warrants little indulgence. As the Sagan standard goes: extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, so if the best you've got is middling on a good day, have some respect for your audience as well as yourself and keep those claims reasonable.
Another important aspect to consider is whether believing the conceptual framework under scrutiny and/or putting it into application is also conducive to adverse consequences and side effects.
Dogmatism & prejudice
Unfortunately, most belief systems are prone to slip into sectarianism over the years, especially as they rise in popularity. As time goes on, groupthink pullulates, minds become complacent and critical thinking is gradually corroded into dogmatism. This process often coincides with a surge in intolerance, othering, and polarization between the in-group and out-group.
However, some philosophies are particularly liable to fall into the latter due to their content. For instance, this is the case when they divide people into a set of categories, each associated with specific traits, that tend to be easy to distort into simplistic and essentialistic discrimination fuel.
Astrology is pretty proficient when it comes to this. Everyone knows Cancers and Scorpios are assholes. Who would even consider July or November for their birth date? I mean the lack of taste, the absolute audacity... Appalling and outrageous, that's all there is to say on the matter.
This is also a common drawback of personality typology systems, whose less discerning aficionados can often let their inquiry into the wonders of human diversity quickly devolve into thought-terminating clichés and dumbed-down stereotypesType racism... Not even once. Very, very naughty. No dessert for you. Typical low in "Openness to experience" behavior :P. Didn't see that one coming, did you now?.
I don't believe that the presence of such a pitfall is in and of itself grounds to invalidate a theory, but it is something to keep both in mind and at bay.
A more severe instance of a conceptual framework's concerning consequences and side effects is when they have the potential to cause harm to people's physical and/or psychological integrity.
Harmful outcomes
There are a few different ways a belief system can engender harm. The most obvious among them is the practice and promotion of destructive behaviors. Many variants are possible, such as:
Diverting resources (i.e. time, money & energy) from more beneficial and efficient solutions is another less obvious potential fallback. Examples could include:
These types of consequences should overrule good spark material, particularly so in the case of high-stakes situations with a strong emphasis on accurately describing factual reality such as health and medicine or the impact of political policies. What we're looking for in these situations isn't soaring inspiration, but meticulous descriptions. Furthermore, acting on an off-kilter diagnosis can incur grievous costs.
Ultimately, the true leverage point isn't to establish a questionable hierarchy of theories in a vacuum, but to use each one within its appropriate context.
There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.
– Thomas Sowell
If we want to get optimal results, carefully considering trade-offs is essential. This requires being clear on our goals and drawing up a fine-tuned analysis of the pros and cons of the different tools at our disposal.
When it comes to conceptual frameworks, the current hegemonic assumption considers describing and predicting reality as their sole purpose. Accordingly, they are only judged on their capabilities in this regard, which we could call their truth valueAssuming The Truth™ can even truly (;P) be achieved in the first place. But that baby of a topic is far too chubby to fit in this already ballooning post, so it'll have to wait for another day. If you're in a rush, check out Scientific realism, Anti-realism, Instrumentalism, and even Pyrrhonism & the Münchhausen trilemma while you're at it.. In many cases, this is a judicious criterion, although it's sometimes applied a bit too reductively.
Nevertheless, in this post, I made the case that other purposes, and thus criteria, could be used. To do so, I focused on an alternative avenue for conceptual frameworks to be valuable and impart knowledge: not by means of direct description, but through the connections and new outlooks sparked by wrestling with their ideas. We could refer to this ability of a theory to inspire as its apophenia value.
Come to think about it, there are probably additional methods and properties that we could conceive through which a philosophy can prove useful.
It's worth noting that just like theories can have variable levels of truth value, ranging from exceptional to lousy, the same is true for apophenia value. Not all sparks are created equal. However, it's a trickier evaluation to make for the latter, seeing as its benefits lean much more into the subjective realm, which means utility may significantly vary depending on the individual.
By taking the different features I've laid up to this point into consideration, we can make a more refined assessment of a conceptual framework's relevance for different types of assignments. The scientific method and objective factors will play a large role in determining truth value, whereas apophenia quality will be weighted more subjectively. Some theories are very good in one focused area, others are mixed bags. Sometimes it's possible to decouple the bad from the good by only keeping certain chunks and narrowing their field of application. Other times that's not really possible, or another framework does it better anyway.
Let's go through a few case studies to give you some tangible examples of what I mean.
Three examples of personal assessments
As a quick disclaimer, this post is already quite long, so I'll have to give pretty broad non-exhaustive summaries. Furthermore, as previously stated, apophenia value and personal utility are quite subjective and therefore opinion-based. You're perfectly in your right to disagree with my assessments. I'm not trying to persuade, but simply to illustrate my point.
While I'm at it, let me add a few more wagons to my shirking-responsibility train.
I'm aware that this post is somewhat redundant, as some points are echoed in multiple sections. I'm a little torn on the matter. Customarily, I try to avoid redundancy as much as I can, but on the other hand, I'm not sure how to cleanly disentangle this bundle of arguments which feels pretty tightly interrelated. Furthermore, tackling them from a few different angles has a chance to make my overall message less ambiguous and more apprehensible. If you have an opinion one way or the other regarding this post, I'd be interested in your feedback.
You'll also notice that I've made liberal use of Wikipedia article links to expand on and/or support many of my claims. Some might fairly question the extent of their exhaustivity and authority, but I do think they make for respectable topic overviews. They can also be used as springboards to delve into subject matters further through their sources.
Astrology
Let's start with astrology. In the name of transparency, I'll start by disclosing my background with it. I'm no expert on the topic, and I never got very personally involved. I did frequent a couple of engrossed adherents in my early twenties. Incidentally, I even got my horoscope done once (as in the full "official" thing with the convoluted constellation charts computed through software).
When it comes to perks, its main publicized use cases are making predictions and deepening our understanding of ourselves, as far as I can tell at least. Both of these have been largely discredited by scientific experiments. Apart from the influence of the seasons, which is far more diffuse than your pretty specific horoscope predictions, no patterns have been found between the date and location of birth and significant life events. As for psychological profiling, astrology doesn't seem to offer keener insights to its adepts based on study results.
On a more subjective note, I find the personality system too simplistic and rigid for my taste. There's no compelling evidence or argument behind its lock-in based on birth date. Psychological theories and personality typology seem like superior alternatives to me.
Sparks-wise, I haven't personally gleaned much insight from it, though I can conceive others' mileage may vary. The best I can remember was to pay more attention to my throat—which is indeed sensitive, as it so happens—on account of being TaurusTaurus. So that's something I guess, but I must admit I don't find myself struggling too hard to contain my exhilaration. Finally, the esthetics and symbolism leave me mostly indifferent, but that's just me.
Time to delve into the downsides and risks. We already addressed the potential pitfall of dogmatism and prejudice. It's also suffering from dishonesty/denial, seeing as it lays it pretty thick on the truth claims without anything to back it up, quite the opposite. This leads to the next snag, namely getting scammed by spending a decent amount of money for celestial peanuts or, even worse, getting misled into making some pretty untoward decisions.
To give an example, during my horoscope session, I was told that my sister was bringing me down, or something to that effect. I got the feeling the astrologist was strongly insinuating I'd be better off distancing myself from her, in spite of the flimsy rationalization provided.
Thankfully, my loyalty isn't quite so brittle that I'd take such drastic, unwarranted action based on the luminary guidance of some stellar schmuck. Neither are my natural paranoid contrarian instincts, for that matter. When some random jackboot, be it human, star constellation, or god, tries to coerce me into following an arbitrary order, I flip 'em the finger on principle. Well, in my head at least. I'm a rebel of the coward variety.
Still, I'd feel pretty appalled and saddened if some people were bewitched into severing their most important relationships based on some astral graph gobbledygook.
So overall, not a great tally. Some inspiration and esthetics may be salvaged, but not much more as far as I'm concerned.
Homeopathy
Alright, let's jump right into our next controversial pseudoscience poster child. Like with astrology, I was never a fervent believer myself, nor am I an expert. However, it's still pretty popular in France, so I was given homeopathic granules now and then to help with common colds and the like as a kid. Growing up, I was also exposed to quite a few people deep into the "counter-culture science" crowd who were staunch supporters of water memory, among other things.
The promoted application of homeopathy is medicinal. It's supposed to heal by exposing patients to diluted (as in very diluted) solutions of what caused the symptoms in the first place. It also lays it thick with the truth claims, selling "cures" and guaranteeing results, to the point of being a pharmaceutical industry. Unfortunately, here again, these claims have been thoroughly debunked. It's basically an elaborately mass-manufactured brand of placebo. Now don't get me wrong, placebo's pretty nifty and all, but that's not what's sold. (Technically, if you sell it as such its effectiveness drops, finicky thing innit.)
Apophenia-wise, since it's a bunch of convoluted descriptions to explain a phenomenon that doesn't seem to exist in the first place, I don't see much to harvest, except perhaps for some fantasy world-building. As I previously stated, hard-science-type topics are all about accurate descriptions and as such aren't usually best suited for inspiration fuel.
As for risks and downsides, we've got a few of the usual suspects. It suffers from a lot of dishonesty in promising results that have been disproven. People can waste a decent amount of money on it, as well as forgo alternatives that have proven curative effects in cases with significant stakes.
In conclusion, it's not looking good. I don't see much to save. It might be a good placebo source. Although, you could probably save money by setting up a Secret Santa type of racket where a couple of friends secretly hoodwink each other into drinking a bit of sugar in a glass of water, under the guise of battle-tested grandmother's remedies.
Personality Typology Systems
In contrast to the two previous examples, I'm favorably biased with regard to typology and have spent a decent amount of time learning about its different systems.
Their main claim to fame is to help us understand ourselves and others better. In turn, these insights can be used to optimize some of our life decisions accordingly, for instance by pointing out which areas to focus on for personal development or the best fits in types of careers and romantic partners. They often come with some explanation of the psyche and its processes, but it's usually in service of self-knowledge and personal growth.
So, how well do they fare on these points? It depends on the system. Although many can be pretty good at making us notice some of our own patterns better and thus spark insight, they usually aren't great at making accurate job and relationship affinity predictionsSince I'm covering a group of theories, it's a bit dicier to point out specifics. If you're curious, here are a few well-known examples. The MBTI is criticized among other things for its disputable namesake test and its poor predictive powers. Similar reproaches are levied at the Enneagram. The Big Five has a better track record in terms of psychometrics, yet it still faces objections regarding its premise and overall relevance.. However, there are a few exceptions when the system is laser-focused on one specific topic rather than all-encompassing (e.g. the RIASEC). Many systems will also offer tests (sometimes called type indicators) to help assess an individual's type. These tend to be pretty questionable and rarely meet the required psychometric standards of validity and reliability.
On the risks and downsides front, as mentioned earlier, typology is also prone to potential dogmatism and prejudice based on personality type. Its theories can suffer from some dishonesty when they oversell their descriptive and predictive ability as well as their scientificity. Lastly, they could influence some people into making rash life choices if they uncritically act on their advice.
All in all, I think personality typology systems can be pretty valuable as long you can exploit their benefits while remaining cognizant of, and avoiding, their biggest pitfalls. Of course, you'll be hard-pressed to find the end-all be-all explanation of human personality. Nevertheless, typology has definitely helped me improve my understanding of myself and others despite its limitations, if only by interpreting affinities and behaviors through the lens of different archetypes I hadn't really considered up to that point.
Conclusion
In closing, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater and strive to be thorough when qualifying your criticism. Describing the truth isn't the only conceivable purpose of conceptual frameworks. There are plenty of other scenarios in which they could prove valuable.
A theory that's poor at describing reality might yet be salvaged for insight generation. That's why it's fine to play around with them, as long as you're not self-deluded, keep a certain level of critical thinking about it, and use the adequate tools for the task at hand.
Ultimately, we can't ignore all unscientificI'd mostly be using Popper's criterion of falsifiability to make that distinction. I prefer unscientific, to pseudoscientific because the latter seems to imply there's some deceit going on when it's possible for theories to be completely candid about their lack of scientificity. questions, because, well... that includes some pretty important shit, you know. Such not-so-trivial subject matters as morality, beauty, meaning, or more generally where value lies, to name a couple. That's right, philosophy isn't ever going away, bitches! Science will always be confined as one of its subsets. I'm afraid ungratefully overturning its progenitor is not within its purview. I mean, to be fair, Science isn't attempting any coups. It is a faithful and scrupulous tool that doesn't experience any personal grievances about operating within the bounds of its intrinsic limits. No, the imperialistic fervor comes from a reductionistic section of its fandom.
Please, Lord, Save Me From Your Followers.
And Please, Science, Exonerate Me From Your Simps.
Changelog
- April 26, 2024: Added the "All models are wrong, some are useful" aphorism at the top.
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