Thread by @Peters_Glen

"[If this comment should have one recommendation], it would be that a poster of [this figure] hangs in every office where modelling takes place"

A solid critique of mathematical modelling & suggestions to improve...

1/

nature.com/articles/s4146…

"Yet if statistics is coming to terms with methodological abuse and wicked incentives, it appears legitimate to ask if something of the sort might be happening in the multiverse of mathematical modelling"
2/

"The preregistration of a modelling exercise before the model is coded is unheard of, although without assessing model purpose one cannot judge its quality." Also need to address model usefulness...

3/

There is "a rhetorical or ritual use of methods", "going through the motions of a scientific process of quantification while in fact producing vacuous (mindless) numbers."

4/

"Unfortunately, most modelling studies don’t bother with a sensitivity analysis—or perform a poor one. A possible reason is that a proper appreciation of uncertainty may...[be] a reminder of the important trade-off between model complexity and model error."

5/

"Integrated climate-economy models pretend to show the fate of the planet and its economy several decades ahead, while uncertainty is so wide as to render any expectations for the future meaningless"

CC: @KevinClimate @RogerPielkeJr

6/

"In economics, models universally known to be wrong continue to play a role in economic policy decisions, while the neologism ‘mathiness’ has been proposed for the use of mathematics in models to veil ideological stances."

CC: @KevinClimate @RogerPielkeJr

7/

"Modelling hubris may lead to trans-science, a practice which lends itself to the language & formalism of science but where science cannot provide answers".

"Models may be used as a convenient tool of displacement – from what happens in reality to what happens in the model"

8/

"This is not an indictment of mathematical modelling. Modelling is essential to the scientific enterprise... Modelling hubris has its counterpart in living in an idealised model-land of appealing simplicity but scarce realism"

9/

"For key models used in policy, peer review should be extended to include auditing by an extended community involving a plurality of disciplines & interested actors, leading to model pedigrees"

10/

This is a great commentary, & hits several nails on the head.

Do read it you are interested in modelling & its (mis)use...
nature.com/articles/s4146…

(Disclosure: my background is mathematics & physics, but I agree with it all!)

HT: @Oliver_Geden