Imperfections and predictions
Doing best possible
Iceland still awaits a volcanic eruption in the southwest of the island, relatively close to Reykjavik. The famous ‘Blue Lagoon’ closed to visitors weeks ago as the number of small tremors increased nearby. Villages mandated their residents to evacuate, a command working in most societies which don’t obsess about ‘freedoms’ en lieu of the public good.
Geology, like everything, is imperfect at prediction. Turns out most human endeavors are imperfect at prediction. Probably the one we know best is the weather where supercomputers, to call up an old term, chew on models of gargantuan amounts of code to kick out forecasts of various possibilities. Political scientists, by the way, have terrible track records at it.
The truth is that most any field confronts too many variables for seamless and complete fidelity and reliability. Doesn’t mean to me that the field fails but they could not account for each and every one of the factors for which they are asking assumptions. That is an imperfection of the method rather than nefarious activity on the part of the specialists.
Certainly the practitioners could be deliberately wrong but that runs counter to my personal experience of individuals dedicated to their work and proud of their craft. I start from the belief they are doing the best with data available. If, however, one is predisposed to nefarious intent or incompetence, either is possible as well but perhaps one is starting from a different assumption about the whole nature of the enterprise.
I start with the assumption scientists calculate a volcanic eruption or the weather based on imperfect knowledge. Of course they would like more data but, as true with any strategy, awaiting all the data could make any prediction obsolete.
Nature is not all revealing to us. Sometimes we have too much data to parse through (or number crunch, if you prefer). Sometimes our assumptions are flat out wrong.
Decision-making, even with supercomputers and most likely AI, will make some improvements but never achieve complete success. I think we are better to recognize that now rather than rue some imperfections.
Thoughts? Rebuttals? Thanks for reading today. I hope you will give us your thoughts.
Be well and be safe. FIN