Why Mathematical Models Just Don't Add Up

The authors of "Useless Arithmetic: Why Environmental Scientists Can't Predict the Future," explain why the complex math used to justify many government actions doesn't add up:

Mathematical models are wooden and inflexible compared with the beautifully complex and dynamic nature of the earth. In the 1960s and 1970s — with the arrival of powerful personal computers, governmental requirements for environmental-impact statements, and widespread applications of mathematical models — scientists thought that quantitative models would be the bridge to a better, more secure future in our relationship with the environment. But they have proved to be a bridge too far.

We now know that there are no precise answers to many of the important questions we must ask about the future of human interaction with our planet. We must use more-qualitative ways to answer them.

Predictive quantitative models should be relegated to the dustbin of failed ideas.

The Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science blog comments: "While the article is quite extreme in its derision of quantitative models, plugs the book the authors wrote, and employs easy rhetoric by providing only positive examples of a few failures and not negative examples of many successes, it is right that quantitative models are overrated in our society, especially in domains that involve complex systems. The myriad of unrealistic and often silly assumptions are hidden beneath layers of obtuse mathematics."