Scientific American discloses why economic models are always wrong. Calibration – adjusting the model to fit a reference standard (in this case, reality) – becomes nearly impossible as the system being modelled becomes more complex. “But in finance they just keep on recalibrating and pretending that the models work.” Oh, and this same problem applies to – dare we say it – “climate science.”
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All the talk of models and input an' sech minded me of a spoof site I ran across long ago. It was loosely connected to the "Dihydrogen Monoxide" gag, and was a scientific supply business where you could buy vital equipment for your experiments, such as liters of ideal gas, frictionless surfaces, perfect circles, etc. Damme if I can find it now, I was gonna post a link
Interesting. I've made the point before that if the WarmMongers' models were that good they could easily turn them on Wall Street and finance their own grants. Of course economics is haaaaard, unlike a rather large, 4.5B year old highly dynamic system spinning at a tremendous speed around a wobbling axis as it revolves around a huge nuclear reactor which is, in turn spinning through an ocean of cosmic radiation , all of which, naturally, the WarmMongers rightfully dismiss as insignificant.
First, you have to understand that the economic models and AGW models are not wrong. Reality is what is wrong.
Where have we heard that before? Oh yes!
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“The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is an indispensable companion to all those who are keen to make sense of life in an infinitely complex and confusing Universe, for though it cannot hope to be useful or informative on all matters, it does at least make the reassuring claim, that where it is inaccurate it is at least definitively inaccurate. In cases of major discrepancy it's always reality that' s got it wrong . . .
"This was the gist of the notice. It said "The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate."
Another prime example why figures don't lie, but liars can figure.
The article talks about economics, but the elephant in the room that the author dares not mention is, of course, that bastion of inaccurate modelling, Climatology. What the author describes as a futile exercise - the constant recalibration of parameters - is precisely what James Hansen, Michael Mann, and the rest of those nincompoops do every day.
Excellent point . . . all modeling suffers from chaos theory. Not only must everything be known, everything must be known quantitatively and no mistakes can ever be made or all models predicated on the inaccurate earlier predictions will compound the errors which will in turn be compounded when used as the data for the next round of predictions.
And no amount of Monte Carlo can solve that.
From what I read, Mann and the others involved in the ClimateGate email ruckus were doing more than that. When the answer you're expecting is 100 and the answer you get is 50, so you change the computer program to "add 50 to make things come out right", that's no longer calibration, that's fraud.
I am curious what your thoughts are on the recent BEST study?
The BEST study used the same data sets used by the previous fraudsters which are all based on NOAA ground measurements. What's more the BEST study did not solve the biggest problem in climatology, the problem even the Warmists and the IPCC admit they have, which is that they have no viable physical model upon which to base their computer modeling. You can't simply take data and retrofit a computer algorythm - you have to have a conceptual explaination for what is happening. Without that, there are no limits to what you will allow yourself to do in your efforts to make your algorythm fit the data... which you will notice is exactly what has been happening for a quarter century.
In simpler terms, the model used by Warmists in their algorythms says that next year's weather is affected by this year's weather, but is not affected by last year's weather or any previous years' weather. Common sense says that such an assumtption is bogus, and indeed they know that it's bogus, but they had to use SOMETHING, so they settled on that. Such is the state of climatology, optimistically called a science.
In simpler terms:
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20111015
so, JP, you're telling us their algorithms were just al gore rhythms? :)
What best study? They all suck.