One of the many pleasures of reading Instapundit is Glenn Reynolds’s use of (mostly) single sentences as pithy commentary on whatever link he posts. Here’s an example:
…and:
In the latter, he’s talking about the Chinkvirus pandemic models, but of course it’s equally applicable to the climate change versions, and just about all the other government- and academic models as well.
“Wise Words”, therefore, is going to become a regular feature on this back porch, gathered under the “Quote Of The Day” umbrella.
Back in the day before my brain rotted, I used primitive modeling software (Simula67) to model for Big Oil, which assigned me the job because I had a math degree.
Modeling was eventually abandoned because varying some input factors by numbers too small for 1970s computers to handle sometimes changed outputs by 10 million percent. Fractal math demonstrates that many complex systems have no limit to the smallness of inputs causing huge output changes.
There are no honest modelers of complex systems because honest modelers refuse to model complex systems.
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts”
Richard Feynman, Nobel Laureate in Physics
My favorite professor in grad school said, “All models lie. Some are useful.”
Most of these professional modelers couldn’t assemble a Revel kit.
*snort*
Heh. My brother does reservoir modelling. It’s moved on a bit.