Useless arithmetic
Subtitle: why environmental scientists can't predict the future
By: Orrin H. Pilkey & Linda Pilkey-Jarvis.
Contributors: Pilkey-Jarvis, Linda.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2007
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 230
ISBN-13: 9780231132121
Subjects: Environmental protection -- Decision making -- Mathematics; Environmental policy -- Mathematics; Ecology -- Mathematical models
Description: "The book offers fascinating case studies depicting how the seductiveness of quantitative models has led to unmanageable nuclear waste disposal practices, poisoned mining sites, unjustifiable faith in predicted sea level rise rates, bad predictions of future shoreline erosion rates, overoptimistic cost estimates of artificial beaches, and a host of other thorny problems. The authors demonstrate how many modelers have been reckless, employing fudge factors to assure "correct" answers and caring little if their models actually worked."--BOOK JACKET
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 213-221) and index.