4 out of 5 stars
A copy of this was provided free of charge from the publisher in return for an honest review.
The future is not what it used to be – Laura Riding and Robert Graves
Anyone who tries and takes a guess into what is going to happen is making a guess. Some of those guesses may be educated or based on long experience of a particular thing but it is still a guess. One of the methods that we have turned to, to understand what might happen in mathematical modelling. And whilst they can be a useful tool, some of them are not much more useful than a foam screwdriver.
These models that have been created are full of hidden dangers. The people who have created them either consciously or unconsciously inflict them with their own biases. Some of them do not accurately take into account all the information and others make dangerous assumptions about the way things actually happen in the real world.
I thought this was a very interesting book. Thompson puts the case well that we need to use these mathematical models but also be very aware that they have finite limits and are not the answer to all of our problems. The maxim rubbish in = rubbish out is very true, especially in some of these models.
Even though it is a complicated subject, though some of that is smoke and mirrors by the people that want to Thompson makes it accessible and interesting and she made me very aware of the limits that models have. I thought it was a very interesting chapter on financial models that seem to increase rather than decrease the risk. The chapter on climate modelling is well worth reading. I think that the call for a CERN-type system that is run by scientists from all over the globe makes a lot of sense. I can recommend this.
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