What Covid-19 Has Taught Us About Models

by Simon 9 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Simon

  Let's talk about predictions. "Woooh, gaze into my crystal ball ... WOOOO!!!"

  Silly, right, who would believe such things? What you need to do is make it "sciency" and you do that by proclaiming that you have a model.

  We have models for all manner of things, from simple things to complex. Sometimes what appears to be simple, like traffic flow, can actually produce quite complex patterns and unexpected behavior (like phantom traffic jams). If the model is accurate it can reflect the real life experiences and show how things happen and, importantly, what the result of any changes might be so you can set policy based on it rather than "hope and see".

  The transmission rate of a virus is a fairly simple model and we've probably all seen the simulations and projection of the likely path of the outbreak and yet, despite it being a very simple model with fairly easy to know inputs, the predictions have varied wildly from "it's just a flu" to "it's the end of life as we know it" and everything in between.

  Experts in different countries have come up with different claims of how to handle things based on their models, and they changed them a day later when they decided the model was wrong, the inputs should be different or the tweaked some parameters.

  Now, is there anything else that we model? Yes, it's gone a bit quiet lately, but Climate Change!

  Despite our inability to accurately predict the virus, we're apparently meant to believe that a far far more complex model, orders of magnitude more complex, trying to predict outcomes far further in advances, decades and centuries, are things that we should have complete and utter blind confidence in.

  Can anyone see a problem here?

  The climate models have been way off and it's even more "crystal ball gazing" vs science than the pandemic modelling is.

  If it's really impossible to tell how many people will be infected tomorrow, how are people predicting the weather 50 years from now and to fractions of a degree?

  It's hoax science - promoting "sciency" things like models and data but it's all guesswork because the model is a big mumbo jumbo machine and you can pull the levers and push the buttons to get whatever result you want.

  How do we know which pandemic models are most accurate? We look at past results. Which ones, when time has passed, predicted the results closest to the ones actually observed? We put more faith in those and ignore the ones that failed.

  We should be doing that with climate "science". Testing the models and checking which, if any, were close at all. Spoiler - none of the ones you read about are even close.

  Climate "science" is just this centuries divination and scary stories to lead the frightened. We should stop letting people frighten us and start asking hard questions instead.

  The people who claim to know the future temperature of the planet are from the same stock as the ones that couldn't foresee a need for extra medical equipment while a pandemic was making its way across the planet.
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  Anna Marina

  An elder (one time close friend) did a lot of stuff on water with late poet laureate Ted Hughes. Read an interview ages back where Ted said he was wrong on pursuing water stuff and should have done climate change. Sorry I can't tell you where I read it or look at it again to double check my facts. So if I am misquoting, sorry.
  

  The idea seems to have been to have a global concern that affected everyone - in this case water purity. But it didn't really catch on (no fishing pun intended :))

  But before I got thrown out, I went to see this elder friend to see if he could help avert the situation where I blew the whistle very publicly on the GB's apostacy against the inspired words of the prophet Daniel. In particular that the 3rd year of Jehoiakim's rulership was the 3rd year.

  This elder told me I could not be certain that Jehoiakim's 3rd year of rulership was actually his 3rd year of Jehoiakim's rulership. I told him I was certain. He called me irrational. I asked him to look at 7 scriptures that proved it. He refused to look at these scriptures with me.

  I am guessing he knew I would not take the strong stand I was taking if I wasn't certain of my facts. So he refused to look at the real figures. Instead he insulted me and sought to undermine my confidence. When he did that... well I never expected this man, who I knew as being kind, would ever do such a thing to me. I can't put into words what I felt, all I can say is that I wouldn't want to oppose the words of the true God.
  
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  minimus

  I think Obama just piped in how important climate Change is and how we (this Administration “ should not ignore things. I think climate change is the last thing I would worry during the coronavirus.
• 

  Simon

  Right now we need a strong economy and we need to pummel China. That is the best thing for the long term environment. Having China in charge of the planet would mean no animals.

  Anyone know the Chinese word for "menu"? It's "zoo", and they like their species 'rare'.
• 

  WTWizard

  And we need these churches, synagogues, mosques, and communists gone. All they do is hold back the truth. Holding back the truth only makes these problems worse, since it is taboo to call out the source of them and eliminate it.

  Holding back science also makes problems worse. If science were advanced without these good for nothing churches, these plagues would be stopped. One case of coronavirus would be the last, since there would be a simple cure. We would also not have to fear cancer, because a cancer diagnosis would lead to a simple remedy that would take the cancer right out at the source instead of years of chemo, surgery, and radiation that do nothing more than open the door for more cancer.

  And, imagine the economy if science were unfettered by political correctness and regulatory agencies controlled by Christi-SCAM-ity. The bible is not a science text book. And neither are the talmud, torah, or quran. These books are all about holding humanity down, not advancing us. We need to stop squelching science that goes against these documents, or against communism (which is where all these foul, filthy programs lead to). Someone that develops a coronavirus cure would quickly get rich, and this would certainly lead to a quick cure for the common cold. Then, other diseases. We would exterminate colds, and the flu would be a thing of the past. Someone else would be working on tuberculosis, someone else would exterminate HIV, hepatitis, herpes, and so on. Before long, we would have an economy unencumbered by these sick days.

  As for stomping China, more than that needs to be done. We need to stomp COMMUNISM, from every source. I don't care whether it is coming from China, from Russia, from Cuba, or from the church down the street. Communism is invasive, it forces its way against the will of people into every land, and is more contagious than the worse coronavirus. And, it is deadly. People get tortured and killed, and then their souls are damaged. Not to mention, it prevents science from doing its job. And yes, I feel political correctness put above science is a form of communism.
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  jp1692

  Simon: We should stop letting people frighten us and start asking hard questions instead.

  Excellent advice. That's just what I'm going to do.
  

  George E. P. Box; a British statistician who worked in the areas of quality control, time-series analysis, design of experiments, and Bayesian inference; famously wrote in various books and papers that: "All models are wrong, but some are useful."

  Simon, with all due respect, you might want to take a step back and learn what science is all about—what it can do well and what it's limitations are.

  Confusing and conflating pandemic models with climate change and political/economic struggles between competing belief systems is neither logical, accurate nor helpful.

  Your OP is so full of factual inaccuracies that I really have no idea where to begin, but you might want to take a minute, take a breath and check your facts. If you think you're right with statements like "the ones that couldn't foresee a need for extra medical equipment while a pandemic was making its way across the planet," then you should cite your sources.

  Just know it's painfully easy to show how wrong that is. There were plenty of experts that foresaw the need for "extra medical equipment" decades before this current crisis came upon on us. Plenty.
  
• 

  Anony Mous

  @JP There are always going to be experts that ‘foresee’ the need for medical equipment decades in advance. There will always be an emergency that some experts have warned us about could or will happen. The problem is that those things happen once every 100-150 years or so and there are always other things that at the moment are more critical.

  In the 1970’s scientists foresaw an ice age by the year 2000’s. Global cooling was a real problem. Some foresaw the reliance on middle eastern oil as a problem, but pumping locally would’ve cost way more over all those decades. Someone has always seen a disaster coming, but a broken clock is right twice too.

  The Netherlands saw a rising ocean and frequent storms. Not until their entire country was under water did they build levees and is now one of the largest storm water control systems. If they can build a levee so their country can remain several centimeters under sea level, any major country could do this. Even so, “experts” have adjusted their models from several meters in worst case scenario global warming to less than a meter.

  As far as global warming (or as they now call it, climate change, as it is neither warming nor cooling appreciatively fast enough to satisfy the models), the US has been leading the world in reducing greenhouse emissions over the last 2-3 years, our greenhouse gasses went down whereas Europe’s and the rest of the world continued to go up. The effects of change are never taken into account in models. Like the COVID-19, the US is not going to see 2-3% death rates, because they did something good and early.

  Sure thing the government could’ve done more, but the government is bad at everything and no other nation in the world has done any better. This just goes to show that we shouldn’t be relying on big government and that a small federal government with minimal regulation (it took FDA over a month to approve research and drug protocols, primarily due to extensive bureaucracy) and (as Trump has done correctly) let local/state governments deal with a localized response. China claims to have done really well, but RadioFreeAsia just reported that Wuhan has been under reporting by an order of 20x and calculated that based on the number of deaths per funeral home, they’re underreporting at least 50,000 deaths in the province.
• 

  stan livedeath

  pummel china

  stomp communism

  cheeesus christ on a bike, dont worry about a little virus, we're gonna have world war 3 next.
• 

  The Fall Guy

  @ stan - a very astute 92 year old gentleman relative has stated a similar point - the E.U. countries are imposing their own laws and guarding their own borders - from each other! He reckons it's not good.

  Apparently, 67% of Italians who were asked, said that they didn't believe the E.U. was good for Italy.
• 

  Simon

  Confusing and conflating pandemic models with climate change and political/economic struggles between competing belief systems is neither logical, accurate nor helpful.

  I'm not confusing or conflating them, I'm comparing them. There is a difference. And they are both supposedly scientific models, but the interpretations for both have political and economic policy impacts.

  Your OP is so full of factual inaccuracies that I really have no idea where to begin, but you might want to take a minute, take a breath and check your facts.

  Point out anything specific that you believe to be factually inaccurate if it's "so full" of them as you claim.

  If you think you're right with statements like "the ones that couldn't foresee a need for extra medical equipment while a pandemic was making its way across the planet," then you should cite your sources.

  It was clear that the pandemic was not contained and was spread to other countries. It's clear that we don't have enough medical supplies and more weren't sourced and not only that, many countries gave up many of the supplies they already had (Canada sent 16 tons of PPE to China). I'm not going to waste my time referencing events for you, I have better things to do with my time - do your own research.

  It's a simple fact. It sounds like you are one of those poor fools that listen to the WHO and swallow every bullshit lie they say.

  Some of us bought masks and stocked up early, in Feb, because we saw what was happening and we listened to people who weren't controlled by China.