[ExI] Essential Upload Data

[Re Rose]

I agree with Darin, the Harvard study is highly unlikely to be correct,
GIGO and all that. Nothing that any "esteemed scientist" has said so far
has had any acquaintance with the reality of this pandemic.

Models are highly malleable, by adjusting parameters within the model you
can take any model and make it say whatever you wish. AI is subject to this
as well. Since the parameters are hidden and it is often unclear to
non-users what physical property the parameters control, this is an easy
way to dupe the public.

Back when I was trying to understand published climate modelling tools, I
found a paper on one of the models used by gov't (no, I don't remember the
name) and it had *over 48 parameters*!! I remember my astonishment that the
paper (which was publicly available, not an internal article) described the
parameters as being able to be "adjusted to have model predictions that fit
proposed data". The parameters were so numerous that they were named by
alphabet letters - A, B, C...Z and then AA, BB, ... ZZ.

So - models are difficult and subject to meddling, and bigly caution is
advised before trusting them IMHO.

--Regina


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Message: 8
Date: Fri, 22 May 2020 10:43:04 -0600
From: Darin Sunley <dsunley at gmail.com>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] Summer weather and COVID-19
Message-ID:
        <CAEptUkQoX1gJXuzV8ArPu8TRDrWoD3rLmrTJ9wvuMtPiXD1XZw at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

As near as I can tell, the primary requirement for being an "epidemiologist
of high esteem" is an unfailing skill at predicting yesterday's weather.

On Fri, May 22, 2020 at 10:41 AM Darin Sunley <dsunley at gmail.com> wrote:

> If you can tell me /one/ quantitative detail an epidemiologist "of high
> esteem" has actually gotten /right/ over the past couple of months, I'll
> begin to care what they have to say. Right now they've cried wolf about a
> thousand times, so, I don't really care what they have to say.
>
> It was the advice of esteemed epidemiologists to not wear masks.
> It was the advice of esteemed epidemiologists to close beaches and parks
> and playgrounds, where no meaningful transmission occurs.
> It was the advice of esteemed epidemiologists that local hospitals
> shouldn't test.
> It was the advice of esteemed epidemiologists that tens of thousands of
> ventilators were desperately needed.
> It was the advice of esteemed epidemiologists to move COVID patients out
> of hospitals into nursing homes in New York.
> It was the advice of esteemed epidemiologists to "not panic" and keep
> crowded mass transit systems running.
>
> Do PLEASE tell us exactly what these people have actually gotten /right/
> so far.
>
>
> On Fri, May 22, 2020 at 10:26 AM John Clark via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, May 22, 2020 at 12:06 PM Darin Sunley via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>> *> The study is not correct. I don't know exactly how it's wrong, but I
>>> guarantee you that none of it's predictions will play out in reality*
>>>
>>
>> My apologies. I was not aware that Darin Sunley was a epidemiologist of
>> such high regard that his opinion was more important than that of every
>> other lesser epidemiologist in the world so we should bet our lives that
>> Darin Sunley is correct, And after all, he gave us a guarantee.
>>
>> John K Clark
>> ______________________________
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