[2] The term "model-dependent realism" was coined by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow in their 2010 book, The Grand Design.
[3] Model-dependent realism asserts that all we can know about "reality" consists of networks of world pictures that explain observations by connecting them by rules to concepts defined in models.
But just as there is no flat map that is a good representation of the earth's entire surface, there is no single theory that is a good representation of observations in all situations[5] Where several models are found for the same phenomena, no single model is preferable to the others within that domain of overlap.
The view of models in model-dependent realism also is related to the instrumentalist approach to modern science, that a concept or theory should be evaluated by how effectively it explains and predicts phenomena, as opposed to how accurately it describes objective reality (a matter possibly impossible to establish).
[8] According to Hawking and Mlodinow, even very successful models in use today do not satisfy all these criteria, which are aspirational in nature.