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From how I see it the conflict is not technical but ideological. Or, in technical terms, what is the objective?: for Forrester and Collins this seemed to be increasing the economical growth of the city and managing KPI (crime, poverty etc.). Baker on the other hand considers also human dignity and our responsibility of keeping a fellow human fed, under a roof, and safe and does not ignore the externalities of the decisions.

Because sometimes you don't know how to build a better model? You should be aware of even the best model's pitfalls.

>If you think the model and it's assumptions are wrong why not go build a better model?

The better model may be intractable to fit (so complex that we lack enough data to train it). Or, it may be fittable but not easy to understand, e.g. a neural network model.

This. I work with models that are considerably simpler than "200 equations and 150 parameters" and we run into non-identifiability problems all the time.