Annnnddeeeee....

I have learned to be scared of scientists with models. So far the models of the Wuhan virus are as accurate as the climate models.

So, the question, are models science?

Even the bureaucrat Fauci admits they are only as good as their "assumptions." Not sure "assumptions " are science.

He forgot that model has to have valid data too. You don't get to change your data when your model is wrong.

I can build models with my grandchildren's Legos. Therefore I am a scientist.

Billy, sweetness, the integrity of the drivetrain that propels your automobile, and the force which floats your airplane, and the flow which pumps the filth from your toilet are all brought to you first as a "model."

are models science?

No. They are, a predictive tool - a mechanical representation of a theoretical framework. If it has predictive value, you might be on the right track.

Not sure what goes into a virus spread model, other than statistics. In which case, your output will only be as good as your input and your assumptions, which is shakey.

Climate models are coupled ocean-atmospheric models. They are only as good as the physics they represent. They are incomplete in that regard.

How do you measure friction in the atmosphere?
How does the ocean and the atmosphere actually interact?

Great questions to which we're still trying to claw out answers. Of Mother Nature's book of secrets, a little I can read.

Even the bureaucrat Fauci admits they are only as good as their "assumptions." Not sure "assumptions " are science.

I've built financial and operational models for year and Fauci is right. The thing that trips up models is not the conclusions drawn from them, but the underlying assumptions that go into them.

Rats are evolving. This one defeats a trap. Is this why scientists put rats in mazes?

https://twitter.com/OntWtf/status/1246239437262065665

Uh..

https://twitter.com/ChuckeEChaves/status/1246061987563536385

"Material misstatements" are also known as perjury when done in a warrant application.

#FISA Court tells government “assess to what extent those 29 (applications 10/2014 - 9/2019) involved material misstatements” and whether misstatements, omissions “render invalid, in whole or in part, authorizations granted by the Court” *Timing overlaps FBI Russia/Mueller probes

https://twitter.com/CBS_Herridge/status/1246192775827271682

Crid,

You are correct about the models you describe. However, I would note that those are models used by engineers with already proven mathematical formulas. Basic Newtonian physics.

Models used by a scientist based on unproven assumptions are not the same thing. Especially when there is a bias towards predicting a worse case scenario.

The point, just because they are "scientists" does not necessarily mean their models, based on assumptions, are reliable predictors of the future. Nor does it mean you are "anti-science" if you question them. Malthus lives.

Ironically, it is somewhat self fulfilling, we are on the cusp of a real crisis. A self inflicted depression. Decisions made based on unproven assumptions, that may not be challenged because the they come from Scientists. Heresy to challenge to the priests.

Toxic relationships, literally.

https://twitter.com/catovitch/status/1246199950159032323

Why should we put even $1 towards the UN? The ChiComs join the human rights council.

https://twitter.com/UNWatch/status/1245891526892363776

Um, what? He could go allll theee waaay, oh what a tremendous block at the hole! tried to go downtown and was denied!

“I’ve had a couple of submissions from let’s say, a man and a woman, that just didn’t seem appropriate to put my voice to in this stage of my life. Maybe later in life, but not now. I look at these videos very carefully and pick the ones that seem the most wholesome to put my voice to.”

https://dailysnark.com/joe-bucks-says-fans-are-sending-him-sex-tapes-asking-him-to-narrate-them-during-quarantine/

Social distancing, NYC style. Additionally

The Times story delves into this further: Southern municipalities and states have been slow to implement stay-at-home orders. But Southerners are traveling less. And the map doesn’t account for necessary travel, like to get groceries or seek medical care.

Barbaro didn’t mention that. “LOL rednecks” is an easier tweet.

There are nine states where more than 5 percent of the population has no car and no supermarket within a mile. North Carolina is one of them; the rest are also in the South.

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/363703/

“The point, just because they are "scientists" does not necessarily mean their models, based on assumptions, are reliable predictors of the future. Nor does it mean you are "anti-science" if you question them. Malthus lives.”

It has been my experience that those who live and die by their ability to manipulate the numbers, are those who are either unwilling or unable to analyze and question both the assumptions, and the data selection.

When it comes to the corona virus, and the data based on the tests, any legitimate researcher will be asking “how reliable are the tests?

The answer seems to be; not very, reliable for several different reasons. The flu test, much older, and more studied, isn’t particularly reliable either.

For those who are only comfortable with a yes or no answer, scary times indeed.

Nothing is more true than the old adage, “to the man with a hammer, as his only tool, every problem looks like a nail”

> Ironically, it is somewhat
> self fulfilling, we

Too many commas, weakly placed; Smells like overreach.




• It's time to get serious about reparations.

• The physical world is counter-intuitive.

According to the New York Post: "Cooped-up New Yorkers are flooding lawyer phone lines with divorce inquiries — with an avalanche of filings expected once the courts re-open."

https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1246470704226349057

Billy, I mean, look: Why not identify specific premises you think are dicey, and explain why, rather than merely say 'Fauci is basing his belief on premises… And premises *might* be mistaken!!

Well, sure... Premises *might* be mistaken for everyone, at all times. Faulting the universal mechanism of human comprehension gets us nowhere.

But I agree with you that Fauci's mission is human health rather than human flourishing, and this crisis arguably demonstrates that a society which expects administrative leadership from a multiply-bankrupted game show host can't have both.

Fauci is nonetheless the superior figure by any measure. He's doing his job.

I know, I know…

Strings.

Crid-crud:

Billy, sweetness, the integrity of the drivetrain that propels your automobile, and the force which floats your airplane, and the flow which pumps the filth from your toilet are all brought to you first as a "model."

Uhhh Nope. I am a mechanical engineer.

Physics "models" reality by expressing repeatedly observed and verified phenomena in precise mathematical expressions. Only the word "model" is common between this and the pseudo-scientific "models" being bandied about now.

Engineering "models" are based on repeatedly tested and verified material qualities (such as the strength of the aluminum used in that engine block) and repeatedly observed and verified behaviors (such as minutely-recorded combustion patterns in the engine cylinders).

Note the use of past tense in all that observation and verification, chappy.

A new "engineering model" for an improved machine or process uses verified, tested, mathematical expressions of verified, tested physical phenomena. Then techniques like Finite Element Analysis are applied to the new design, subjecting it to minute analysis and scrutiny.

THEN the engine is built and observed, tested, verified.

.... after decades working in engineering and hi-tech, I offer this distinction: programmers are intelligent yet capable of being misled outside their area of expertise because their thinking is theoretical/legalistic - they care primarily if a claim seems internally consistent (like an abstract geometrical proof), or *could* work.

Engineers verify reality.

In my experience engineers are far more skeptical of pseudo-science like climate alarmism because they have a real-world sense of scale, and a habit of observing and verifying.

Regarding the Wuhan virus - many essential pieces of data are missing, curtailing the ability to "model" anything.

Obfuscatory signatures might make people doubt your sincerity.

"Modeling" isn't the exclusive tool of engineers or anyone else. Medicines also are composed "and observed, tested, verified." Do you think Fauci would deny having a "model" for how pandemic might propagate? Or that the thirty-five year director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases would accept the description of "pseudo-scientific"? Wikipedia:

In 2003, the Institute for Scientific Information stated that from 1983 to 2002, "Fauci was the 13th most-cited scientist among the 2.5 to 3 million authors in all disciplines throughout the world who published articles in scientific journals".

The guy lived a remarkable life, but man, the music industry treated him like Hell.

“Modeling" isn't the exclusive tool of engineers or anyone else. Medicines also are composed "and observed, tested, verified." Do you think Fauci would deny having a "model" for how pandemic might propagate? Or that the thirty-five year director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases would accept the description of "pseudo-scientific"? Wikipedia:”

Having a model of how a pandemic might propagate based on the statistical analysis after the fact of another disease, doesn’t quite get you there.

We know the current models rely on the data from China (mostly lies) and from Italy with elderly population and sub standard medical care.

I believe Ben David is correct, Too much missing data.

> doesn’t quite get you there.

What "there" could you possibly be describing? "Too much missing data" for what, exactly?

Has a wall, or a bridge truss, or the wing of an aircraft ever been built without incorporating the data of previous efforts into its "model"?

Has a wall, or a bridge truss, or the wing of an aircraft ever been built without incorporating the data of previous efforts into its "model"?

Crid at April 4, 2020 12:22

Yes. When it is an entirely new design and a new material.

A model is predictive. When it fails to predict accurately. it is not a good model. Static models like an aircraft wing are pretty simple. Dynamic Models with multiple variables, and multiple assumptions are not.
Fauci may be the smartest guy in the Universe, I don’t know, but like everyone else, He is only as good as his last prediction.

I don’t know how this thread became the battle of the experts. What I see here is the precautionary principle on steroids which has turned into a political football.

"Has a wall, or a bridge truss, or the wing of an aircraft ever been built without incorporating the data of previous efforts into its "model"?" ~Crid

And there you name the problem with your own argument Crid. Lots of bridge trusses end entire aircrafts have been built using models, and then failed. Hence the need for actually building the thing to verify it actually works.

IRA, if you are really interested in how these pandemic and other disease models are built and what all the variable that go into them are look up the stuff Crid used to try and harass me. There are some really good papers in there that cover that exact situation. Sorry I was too lazy to keep links to them. After all I couldn't really see how pandemic modeling proved that coffee filters protect you from airborne viruses. My loss I guess.

This probably revenge for conning Chinese tourists into paying 4 euros for a cup of coffee and then charging them 96 euros in Service Fees.

https://twitter.com/Vara_Dark/status/1245864466375266306

> Hence the need for actually
> building the thing to verify
> it actually works.

FFS, son, do you seriously affirm that medications aren't tested?

You guys are Ritz crackers.

Might want to dial your Ritz crackers back a bit Crid. You've just picked another point not in your favor. YES medications are tested. It doesn't matter what the model says. Human body modeling is a great tool for identifying promising new leads in medicine. But it isn't enough to say 'the model checks out'. You have to actually test it. Which was Bill's point.

Models are useful, but they aren't enough.

> When it fails to predict
> accurately. it is not a
> good model.

Yes, that would follow. So what?

I read a favorite bio a few weeks ago, but it's lost in Google noise. Here are a few passages from Business Insider:

[Fauci's] spent more than half his life working in the public-health sector.

Fauci took over the top position at NIAID in 1984. The institute has an annual budget of nearly $6 billion and manages the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS, measles, and tuberculosis in the US.

When Fauci took over NIAID, the world was in the throes of the HIV/AIDS crisis. He was one of the leading architects of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a program credited with saving millions of lives.

Fauci's research has been pivotal in understanding how HIV destroys the body's immune system. He played a critical role in developing treatments that enable HIV-positive people to live long and active lives.

George W. Bush awarded Fauci the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the highest honor given to a civilian — in 2008 because of his role in creating the PEPFAR program.

Fauci has also won the Presidential National Medal of Science and been given 45 honorary doctoral degrees from universities in the US and abroad.

He won the Robert Koch Gold Medallion, an international award for "accumulated excellence in biomedical research" in 2013.

President George H. W. Bush asked Fauci to be head of the NIH in 1989, but Fauci refused, saying that his work at NIAID was more important.

As a researcher, Fauci has been the author, co-author, or editor of more than 1,300 scientific publications. Fauci was the 41st-most cited researcher of all time based on Google Scholar citations, according to a 2019 analysis. He ranks eighth out of more than 2.2 million immunology authors in terms of his citation counts in the last 40 years.

His expertise and experience were also critical during the Ebola outbreak between 2014 and 2016, and the Zika outbreak that started soon thereafter.

Fauci's work has saved the lives of millions of men, women, and children across the world, according to the American Academy of Achievement. The Academy cited Fauci's legacy of leadership in public health and research into HIV/AIDS therapies.

There's perhaps no figure in public life, certainly few more esteemed in health care, than Fauci. Yet "Bill" — with indeterminate expertise in an unrelated field — smirkingly mocks him as a "bureaucrat," when perhaps no one in government has worked hard to maintain a shop-floor (or lab-coat) appreciation for the state of the art.

Others pile on, as if to finally explain how the scientific method reeeely works to this enormously credentialed figure.

Yeah. Right

I doubt Fauci would take offense. Pandemic models are like economic models. It isn't moral to test them. Doesn't mean you abandon them. But you do recognize their limits.

Others pile on, as if to finally explain how the scientific method reeeely works to this enormously credentialed figure.

Yeah. Right

Crid at April 4, 2020 2:53 PM

I’m sure he knows exactly how the scientific method works.

What we are saying is that Fauci doesn’t have good enough data to build a valid model, and furthermore, he *knows* he doesn’t have good enough data to build a valid model.

I’m old enough to remember the early hysteria going on about AIDS. Too bad there was no internet back then or I could pull some of those crazy alarmist statements up. A lot of them made by public health officials. It would be extremely interesting to hear Fauci’s early pronouncements on the subject.

The models I like best wear a relative lack of expensive clothing.

The numbers in New York are bad, but don’t seem to be going as predicted.

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/363766/

Ongoing reality (instead of models):

Corona Virus Daily Thread #37

Are there any models, scientific or otherwise, that predict stuff like this:

Authorities: South Dakota man accidentally shoots Lyon County man in the butt

Oddly enough, yes Mpetrie. There are models of things like that. But due to the relatively low incident rate they aren't all that good.

> I doubt Fauci would take offense.

Kitten, rest assured that your idiocies are a threat to his feelings.

> What we are saying is that Fauci
> doesn’t have good enough data to
> build a valid model

You should share your concerns about the integrity of his data with him personally. Contact his office to a arrange a meeting:

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
5601 Fishers Lane, MSC 9806
Bethesda, MD 20892-9806

Local: 301-496-5717
Fax: 301-402-3573

Crid, the wildly inaccurate models have blown
up in Fauci’s face. I doubt if I need to be the the one calling their attention to it.

As others on this board have pointed out, they didn’t have enough data to build a model to begin with, so instead of saying “we don’t know, but we have to prepare for the worst case scenario” which would have been the honest way to approach it. they tried to baffle the rubes with their bullshit models.

Others have been keeping better track than I of their wildly inaccurate projections, and huge margins of error, but here is the link if you care to look yourself.
The internet is forever, even as they try to erase their earlier projections.

https://covid19.healthdata.org/

This was supposed to be updated yesterday, which would have been a relatively simple task if the model was good. But, it wasn't, so there is a lot of scrambling going on.

Honestly Isab I don't fault Fauci too much. At first I thought he was a neverTrumper. But the more I've seen of him the more I recognize what is going on. He is a scientist and he is monofocused on this disease. I don't think he was trying to fool anyone. But he foolishly treated the general press like he would a scientific journal.

I do fault Trump for his overreliance on Fauci. Fauci is concerned with one thing only. Life doesn't work that way. There are dozens of competing priorities. Especially with this not being an existential threat to the nation. Fauci is performing his role. At some point Trump need to reign him in and tell him he is running out of time.

“Isab I don't fault Fauci too much.”

Neither do I, but he isn’t the one building the models. Let’s face it, he is 79 years old, and is relying on work done by his subordinates. I don’t expect someone that age to be much more than a TV briefer.

I am reminded of all the people touting Muller as a rock star early on, when it became apparent after the hearings, he was just a figurehead.

Even there I don't fault the modelers. There is a reason most successful companies are headed by marketing people and not engineers and scientists.