I know some here have built varroa and other models to try to understand and predict bee-related phenomena.  How successful have you been in prediction?  Back testing?


Interesting observation Allen.   And on target.  It amazes me how many people bought into the black box modeling of  Covid,  and the last elections as examples.  It seems the more complex you make the math look,  the more people buy into the nonsense.    
We should call that "Linders law"  ( just kidding  probably already named)

Dubner and Levitt made a fortune off of this observation.  

We ran into this early on in FEA,  and mold flow in engineering.  Early on most of experienced guys realized how bad the math was,  but  over the last few years  it has been reviewed and reworked and is getting remarkable accurate.  That  requires feedback.  One of my best friends is still doing this for a large company,  reworking the formulas over and over to match real world results.

That said,  I have had mold flows done on the same parts by 3 different companies,  and gotten 2 completely different sets of results,  as much as 30% differences yet,  based on input variables in the math formulas.


It does seem that one off formulas like the covid models  or elections,  will never get enough rework to be anywhere near accurate.  But that will never stop public opinion from blindly following.  Just look at the shelves at any store when they predict snow.  Never mind the fact they are very seldom accurate.

Other models,  like Randys Mite formulas have been worked and reworked until they do match,  the math  is out for all to see (unlike weather, politics and covid)

Bottom line,  I ask myself how well the model is used,  and are they open with the inputs, and have they looked at real world results to verify.

Charles

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