Models are like polls, they serve as political tools.
I don’t think COVID-19 will kill 100,000 people in the US, but so far the response to it has killed over ten million jobs...
You have expressed what I have been saying here for weeks, but more eloquently. However, many here will discount your expertise because you question our medical deities (Imperial University which has been revealed as very inaccurate) and President for Life Fauci (I did not vote for him, did you?).
The model has no intelligence. It is as good as the algorithm devised by the designers. It’s not even a “Model” of the real world. It considers a limited number of factors, while the real world has a huge number of them. It divides reality into convenient segments, while reality does not come in convenient segments.
So a model is inherently incapable of predicting the future. Sometimes the output coincides with reality, and sometimes it doesn’t.
Lorentz: Chaos: When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future.
Sacrificing our economy to blindly trust a model that has ZERO basis in reality was an extremely reckless decision.
Government/Medical tyranny coupled with Propagandists Extraordinaire can be very deadly.
Fat man, little boy, tiny germ ALERT.
They are not models. They are simply basic math multiplying numbers they don’t understand.
Models use multiple parameters, curve fitting (requires Calculus), linear equations, population models, statistical mathematics, data sources, etc. Modeling is much more complex than simply taking a value today and multiplying by 365 to come to an annual number. That’s not modeling.
I'm not a modeler but I work in an industry where models are used extensively for forecasts of future demand on public infrastructure. I have never once seen a model output that was 100% accurate, but in most cases they provide reasonable estimates based on prior trends and current known conditions.
Models for biological phenomena are probably very tricky simply because the "current known conditions" are often a large black hole, but "prior trends" in other comparable situations can at least provide some reasonable guidance on future conditions. Maybe the range of potential outcomes is wide, but in a rapidly-changing situation at least the model can be re-calibrated and updated constantly.
I see a COVID-19 model as not unlike a hurricane tracking model. It will never be totally accurate, but the forecasts are reasonably accurate for emergency preparedness purposes.
21st century Witch Doctors.
Good quote from Korzybski (1879-1950): “The map is not the territory.”
Great post.
modeling is a form of “imitation,” i.e., by definition not real.
“The result of this pseudoscientific imitation is to produce experts, which many of you are. [But] you teachers, who are really teaching children at the bottom of the heap, can maybe doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”
‘When someone says, “Science teaches such and such,” he is using the word incorrectly. Science doesn’t teach anything; experience teaches it. If they say to you, “Science has shown such and such,” you might ask, “How does science show it? How did the scientists find out? How? What? Where?”’
—Dick Feynman speaking to a group of science teachers a long time ago
"All models are approximations.
Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.
However, the approximate nature of the model must always be borne in mind."
George E. P. Box, Statistician
A huge problem is these models are being produced by academics who are no longer selected by merit but by race and sex.
Excellent post.