I have the impression that some people may not quite understand the purpose of modeling (or maybe their understanding is just different from mine
). My understanding is that the purpose of a model is to provide a theoretical framework for the known facts. It isn't providing new evidence, it is synthesizing existing evidence. It answers "how" and "why" more than "what." It is, by its very nature, hypothetical.
A good model explains all the known facts about the topic; it doesn't just cherry-pick the ones that fit the hypothesis. It should provide a tight, elegent explanation without gaps in logic. It should examine other possible explanations for the same group of known facts, and provide convincing arguments why
this model explains those facts better than other models. A good model should be based on sound evidence, and cite the studies from which the evidence comes. And finally, a good model should be predictive and testable: it should say "If this model is correct, then when you do
x study,
y will be the result.
A good model points the direction that future research should take. As that research provides new data, if the new data fits the model, the model stands. If not, the model is either scrapped or revamped to fit current knowlege.
I got to watch this happen in my lifetime in the field of geology. We had all these facts, we had volcanoes, and earthquakes, and fault lines, and rocks on one continent that seemed to match rocks on another continent. We just didn't have a mechanism, a model that fit the pieces together. Then when the theory of plate tectonics was proposed, the pieces fell into place. Those who had proposed other models objected loudly at first, but mostly there was a kind of collective "aha!" among geologists as they could see how it explained more and more pieces of data. And then as new studies were done and new technologies were developed, they confirmed the predictions of the model.
I haven't looked at this model in detail yet, so I have no opinion as to how good it is (and I'm too brain-fogged right now to do it). I do think that the answer to ME/CFS probably lies in this direction, though. Most of the other theories are too "blind men and the elephant"; they don't explain the whole thing. I don't know whether the whole neuro-immune, nitric oxide, ATP, mitochondrial thing is causal, or just the mechanism that produces the symptoms from another preceeding trigger. But I think we need to be looking at these positive-feedback loops and cascades.