I've yet to read a comment about how well such models predict reality. Who is going to weigh in? I studied economics, and I have some doubts about whether this

I've yet to read a comment about how well such models predict reality. Who is going to weigh in? I studied economics, and I have some doubts about whether this kind of modelling works well enough to be useful. There's statistical issues like whether you have enough data to bring in your error bars, and theoretical issues like whether the thing you're studying moved below you because it's being studied. Neither of which invalidate the model entirely, but both of which make it a heck of a hard task. And in the end, what matters is whether it works or not. The Lagrangian for quantum physics is some huge formula that gets pushed as meme now and again but it works. Likewise f = ma works perfectly well for your high school rolling ball experiment.