the value of ad-hoc (non-sober)

It's Friday night, I owe myself a post.

Intuition is like assholes. Everyone has one.

So are ad-hoc models.

What's the value of an ad-hoc model? Economic formalists may want to admit some modesty. We (should) know that our models are imperfect. If we permit only formal models, we express hubris. The value of ad-hoc models, is that they have the potential, the potential to advance the science, assuming that our assholes (our intuition) has some value.

I will readily admit that despite the lack of a formal foundation for arbitrarily regressing variables on other variables, and despite my distaste for such practices, that there is obviously a potential for such "models" to add to our understanding of society.