Friday, May 08, 2009
Modeling Mistakes
neo-neocon recently commented on this Wired piece, about how a mathematical model has heavily contributed to the mortgage crisis. Her final comment says a lot:
Any good scientist understands the limitations of his/her work. Anytime we do science, the first thing we do is draw a line around the system we are going to study - we start with the limitations. But the problem is when people want to use it to exercise authority, those limitations get fuzzy, or gone.
What is amazing to me is that the process is almost identical to what happens to religion. People co-op both science and religion for political ends, and both get warped and both get harmed. Religion has suffered this fate more than science mostly becasue it is older and has been more used in this fashion, but science is catching up in a hurry.
The public square requires simplification of message. We cannot count on the general populace to understand complexities like this mathematical model or complex ethical arguments about stem cells. But their votes are needed, so simple we get.
So what to do? How about make sure that who we elect, or in the case of this financial model, who we hire to run things, actually understands math, science and religion. Religious/ethical education is completely missing from public schools. Math and science is increasingly de-emphasized. And yet we see these things used as the basis for making decision that cost people their retirement and children their lives.
Home schooling has made tremendous advances in the religious/ethical area. They have brought it back to the curriculum. But I fear for science and math in such circumstances. Most home schoolers I know, while lovely people, lack a true understanding of math and science. Heck, most high school math teachers I know are more teacher than mathematician, they have reduced what is a truly creative process to mechanics. You simply cannot understand math mechanically.
I wonder about math and science at Torrey Honors?
Don’t blame Li [ed. - inventor of the mathematical model in question]—he just made the model, he didn’t apply it. Those who did were unaware of its limitations, partly because they didn’t get the math, partly because they decided to ignore history, and partly because there was gold in them thar hills.There is quite an object lesson there when we have a president that wants to "restore science to its rightful place." What is the rightful place of science.
Any good scientist understands the limitations of his/her work. Anytime we do science, the first thing we do is draw a line around the system we are going to study - we start with the limitations. But the problem is when people want to use it to exercise authority, those limitations get fuzzy, or gone.
What is amazing to me is that the process is almost identical to what happens to religion. People co-op both science and religion for political ends, and both get warped and both get harmed. Religion has suffered this fate more than science mostly becasue it is older and has been more used in this fashion, but science is catching up in a hurry.
The public square requires simplification of message. We cannot count on the general populace to understand complexities like this mathematical model or complex ethical arguments about stem cells. But their votes are needed, so simple we get.
So what to do? How about make sure that who we elect, or in the case of this financial model, who we hire to run things, actually understands math, science and religion. Religious/ethical education is completely missing from public schools. Math and science is increasingly de-emphasized. And yet we see these things used as the basis for making decision that cost people their retirement and children their lives.
Home schooling has made tremendous advances in the religious/ethical area. They have brought it back to the curriculum. But I fear for science and math in such circumstances. Most home schoolers I know, while lovely people, lack a true understanding of math and science. Heck, most high school math teachers I know are more teacher than mathematician, they have reduced what is a truly creative process to mechanics. You simply cannot understand math mechanically.
I wonder about math and science at Torrey Honors?
Technorati Tags:education
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator
