The models were continually flawed - the UW one was over by at least ten times. Go and read this post from Kim Du Toit which links to a much longer and wonderfully detailed examination.
Quote Of The Day
From the study proving that Niall Ferguson’s Chinkvirus model contained flawed methodology (to say the least) comes this conclusion:
“On a personal level, I’d go further and suggest that all academic epidemiology be defunded. This sort of work is best done by the insurance sector. Insurers employ modellers and data scientists, but also employ managers whose job is to decide whether a model is accurate enough for real world usage and professional software engineers to ensure model software is properly tested, understandable and so on. Academic efforts don’t have these people, and the results speak for themselves.”
Hell, considering what’s come out of academia in terms of climate modeling as well as this latest fiasco, I’d prefer to have bookies produce the models, rather than universities.
And this is why charlatans like the Hockey-Stick guy (of global warming infamy) steadfastly refuse to release their code — they know it’ll fall over under the slightest scrutiny.
Had I ever tried to get this bullshit past my clients back in the day when I was involved in this kind of thing, I’d have been fired on my ass and my business cred utterly demolished. These pricks deserve no less.
It was a model derived in academia. In its original state, it was a single file with 15,000 lines of code. Stunningly bad programming practice. I am reminded of these two quotes:
"For real people, if something works in theory, but not in practice, it doesn't work. For academics, if something works in practice, but not in theory, it doesn't exist."
--Nassim Nicholas Taleb
A corollary to what Vox Day said:
In academia there is no difference between academia and the real world; in the real world there is.
And a tip 'o the chapeau to Maggie's Farm for the first quote.
Absolutely - we only have to look at the failed "hockey stick" chart of global warming to understand that the work of academics is frequently deeply flawed. There is no real-world repercussion if they are wrong.
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