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GTH's avatar

Computer models for public policy are ABSOLUTE GARBAGE. I'm a computer scientist by trade and I've worked in software for 26 years professionally (and programmed for many more). I've worked on games where you can cast magic spells or fire plasma guns. Does that mean you can do it in real life?

The simple rule with computer simulations is: garbage in, garbage out.

For example, lets take the climate grift. Ignoring the obvious incentive of climate scientists to NOT solve the problem (i.e. where does my funding come from when there's no histrionics over the weather) did you know that NO computer simulation has been able to accurately predict our measured yearly temperatures?

If I were to write a climate model in software and test for accuracy what I would do is start at the base-line where we started recording temperatures and then, attempt to predict the temperatures for each year (within a small tolerance) from said base line. If I got the temperatures accurate within a small tolerance then, my model is good. If not, it's garbage.

Guess how many climate simulations can predict the measured temperatures. ZERO. Guess how many climate models are garbage? ALL OF THEM.

A lot of people don't understand computer programming so they just assume that it's right. I presume (given the mid-wits I've worked with in my career) any professional field suffers from the same (Looking at you, medical doctors).

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SimulationCommander's avatar

This is the Alex I pay for! Get 'em! This paper was such a joke, as is just about everything that makes it onto the mainstream media these days (and we know why, don't we?)

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