Читать книгу Bisexuality and the Challenge to Lesbian Politics - Paula C Rust - Страница 16

A model, or paradigm, is a way of representing something. Usually, in the social sciences, models are used to make something that is intangible—for example, the economy—a bit more tangible. Nobody can see the economy, but economists have computerized models of the economy that allow them to understand the real economy and predict what it will do in the future. It is impossible to create a perfect model, because the process of modeling is the process of giving shape to something that does not have a particular shape of its own.

All models contain assumptions, and all models highlight some features while downplaying or concealing others. When I teach, I illustrate this point by pulling a chair to the front of the room, tilting it forward, and asking a student to tell me what color the top of the seat is. The student can see the top of the seat, so she gives me the answer. Then I ask her what color the bottom of the seat is. She hesitates, and then either says she can’t tell or she guesses that it is the same color as the top of the seat. The fact is that, when viewing the chair from any given angle, she can see certain aspects of the chair but she cannot see others. If I were to turn the chair around, she would be able to see new aspects of the chair, but she would no longer be able to see the aspects she saw before. The chair looks different from each angle, and each angle displays some aspects while concealing others. Which view of the chair is the most accurate one? None. In order to fully know what the chair looks like, the student has to look at it from all different angles. Scientific models work the same way. We do not have to decide which model is the “best” or most “accurate.” We need to try out all the models, learn something from each one, and then put all that knowledge together to form a more complete picture of the thing we are trying to understand.