Greg, I don't think we are given enough information here to call this a fallacy.
However, I probably side with your overall skepticism about how formalism is used and abused.
The foundations of mathematical modeling are simple to state.
A good model is: a) a formal translation of informal language, of b) truth functional elements, that c) preserves validity of the home language inference.
Unfortunately, many thinkers leave out c) all together, are ignorant of b)'s limitations, and do not think about a).
Some conscious effort along the lines of a-c would improv... (read more)
Greg, I don't think we are given enough information here to call this a fallacy.
However, I probably side with your overall skepticism about how formalism is used and abused.
The foundations of mathematical modeling are simple to state.
A good model is: a) a formal translation of informal language, of b) truth functional elements, that c) preserves validity of the home language inference.
Unfortunately, many thinkers leave out c) all together, are ignorant of b)'s limitations, and do not think about a).
Some conscious effort along the lines of a-c would improv... (read more)