Prediction Modeling: That’s Entertainment

I don’t pretend to be a scientist but I have slept at a Holiday Inn Express before. On top of that, I’m always seeking a good chuckle first thing in the morning. I think I found one.

I’m old enough to remember the days when people of this world predicted that computers, among other things, were going to make us all lazy slobs. We may have become lazy slobs but I’m not sure how much can be attributed to computers, at least directly. I will also date myself to say that one of my favorite classes in high school was called, “Computer Math”. That’s where I began learning Fortran (It’s a computer programming language most people have never heard of.) and logic. I’m anal enough to have enjoyed logic. What was cool about it was that I learned how to write a program that would give me desired results based on certain input. Yes, if I wanted I could skew the program to give me the results I wanted. (I knew you were going to ask.)

We use this same sort of thing today to predict our future or the future. We predict the weather. How good do you think that is? I’ve always heard tell that if you and I were as wrong at our jobs as weathermen were, we’d be fired.

We seem to think we can predict climate changes and weather patterns (global warming), 10, 20, 50 years into the future. Hmmm. We can’t seem to foretell the weather an hour from now, even by looking out the window, I’m not sure how smart we are at guessing beyond that.

And let’s not forget that we believe we can predict our economic future too by using these sophisticated programs. And how’s that working out for us right now?

Modeling it’s called. Our biologists and wildlife scientists are learning to use modeling to predict what’s going to happen to polar bear, wolves, sheep, mosquitoes and even the ruby-throated croople poop!

For whatever this is all worth, it’s interesting and more. In a recent email discussion I had with a few scientists, scholars and concerned sportsmen, we all began examining a study that was done on modeling to estimate the success of breeding pairs of wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains.

Most of us know that the new Obama administration is going to butt heads with the enviros in an attempt to remove federal protection of the gray wolf and turn management over to the states. It was discussed as to whether this study would be referred to. Perhaps, but one has to wonder which side might use it.

Aside from all that and how much authority you want to give modeling to determine the success of breeding, a bit of a comical moment came out when Dr. Valerius Geist wrote the following in an email exchange.

After the collapse of econometrics [The application of statistical techniques to economics in the study of problems, the analysis of data, and the development of theory], the disappointing results of post-hoc analysis of their powers to predict, the admitted cluelessness of experts interviewed, and what you wrote some time ago about Caughley’s models, the severe criticism of global warming predictions based on modeling, etc, I am becoming very skeptical as well as confused. If econometric modeling contributed to current economic collapse, although such was done extensively with the use of supercomputers, just what hope do we have in biological modeling which is dealing with matters even more complex than the economy? I quit modeling a very long time ago, even though it was entertaining, precisely because it’s results were so hilarious. Maybe others were better at it! Now I doubt that they were! In the wolf debate, I am missing a fact I have to live with: the absence of a predictable steady state. Wolf packs arrive, total wildlife devastation follows, and off they go with a lagging, agonizing recovery of wildlife. If wolves come, eat themselves out of house and home, then move on to repeat the same, You do not have steady state predictability except over huge contiguous areas of wilderness, not in mosaic of settled landscapes and wild lands. Local devastation of wildlife – and I mean devastation! – deer, waterfowl, grouse, rabbits….the lot goes, etc. Local devastation will have political consequences. The chief lesson from North American experience is to keep wolves way low – then they are beloved darlings!

Snicker! Chuckle!

Tom Remington