"I'm pleased to see that my theory stands up to computational modelling,"

Was anyone else disturbed by that statement?

We all know that models are heavily dependent on parameters, and by tweaking them you can get whatever result you want. The only use a model has is when it shows a pattern of predicting observations in the real world. In other words, a model is essentially a theory about the way the world works.

So "stands up to computational modeling" strikes me as a very unscientific thing to say -- kind of like saying "my theory stands up to his theory". Theories should stand up against testing and observations in the real world.