Abstract

I introduce a new method for validating models—including stochastic models—that gets at the reliability of a model’s predictions under intervention or manipulation of its inputs and not merely at its predictive reliability under passive observation. The method is derived from philosophical work on natural kinds, and turns on comparing the dynamical symmetries of a model with those of its target, where dynamical symmetries are interventions on model variables that commute with time evolution. I demonstrate that this method succeeds in testing aspects of model validity for which few other tools exist.