I wouldn't say modeling is horse shit. It's really marketing surrounding modeling that's horse shit. Modeling is actually very very useful but is too often ove

I wouldn't say modeling is horse shit. It's really marketing surrounding modeling that's horse shit. Modeling is actually very very useful but is too often oversold, which drives me bananas. It's especially bad in the world of data driven or data intensive models because that's trendy and sells software, hardware, and services. The problem is that various forms of modeling are complex and therefor expensive and convincing people to invest in furthering the domain results in these poor public misrepresentations and overselling. Modeling gives us ways to abstract reality and attempt to predict the future or find patterns we might otherwise miss. Sometimes it works, a lot of times it doesn't, but when it does it's great. Everytime--its expensive and people need to feel they didnt waste their money.