… is from page 43 of University of Stirling economist Brian Loasby’s important 1976 book, Choice, Complexity and Ignorance:
Models, whether conceptual or experimental, can be invaluable if their limitations are recognized; but one of the dangers in their use is that they leave us ignorant of our own ignorance. They not only tell us nothing about the effects of what is excluded; they are liable to prevent any recognition that what is excluded may have some effect….
The search for rigor may conceal critical areas of ignorance.