Well, yes. Quite.

So you have a model which isn't actually an - er - model?

What's your definition of a model, exactly? I know that if I use standard models (not to be confused with The Standard Model) in circuit design or bridge building, I'll get an answer that approximates reality in a useful way, subject to some minor and predictable constraints.

When I look at ideas in economics, after I get over the 'You cannot be serious?!' stage, that kind of precision seems somewhat lacking, except for a very tiny subset of very simple problems.

Do you actually think understanding our economic (and ecological) system is impossible?

I think it's a much harder problem than it looks, because unlike engineering or chemistry, economics is mostly psychology and politics.

And as for ecology - ecology is hard. It's much harder than most people seem to even begin to realise. Ironically I think the Leontieff approach is a lot more applicable to ecology than to economics, because the networks and energy flows in an ecosystem don't depend on anyone's opinion. (At least, not until fairly recently.)

What bothers me is that this modelling seems like an appeal to authority, and is only superficially related to the modelling done in real science.

I haven't looked through acres of papers, but I would be mightily surprised if I couldn't find at least one paper that used this model to 'prove' that raising the minimum wage would create unemployment, and another that 'proved' that it wouldn't.