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Gillitrut  Reading from the golden book under bright red stars  1yr ago (link.springer.com)   Edited 1yr ago   1594 thread views

Pay no attention to the Model Behind the Curtain!

link.springer.com

Many widely used models amount to an elaborate means of making up numbers—but once a number has been produced, it tends to be taken seriously and its source (the model) is rarely examined carefully. Many widely used models have little connection to the real-world phenomena they purport to explain. Common steps in modeling to support policy decisions, such as putting disparate things on the same scale, may conflict with reality. Not all costs and benefits can be put on the same scale, not all uncertainties can be expressed as probabilities, and not all model parameters measure what they purport to measure. These ideas are illustrated with examples from seismology, wind-turbine bird deaths, soccer penalty cards, gender bias in academia, and climate policy.

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But that need not be because of how much money it is, but because money is fungible to other projects that we care about. E.g. maybe saving lives is infinitely valuable

People often declare that lives are infinitely valuable and proceed to spend money on entertainment rather than donating it to save lives. Nearly noone actually behaves like lives were infinitely valuable.

In practice, yes. It was just an example.

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