"Useless Arithmetic: Why Environmental Scientists Can't Predict the Future&
"Useless Arithmetic: Why Environmental Scientists Can't Predict the Future"by Orrin H. Pilkey, Linda Pilkey-Jarvis
Columbia University Press | 2007 | ISBN: 0231132121 | 247 pages | PDF | 5 Mb
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.
A timely and urgent book written in an engaging style, Useless Arithmetic evaluates the assumptions behind models, the nature of the field data, and the dialogue between modelers and their "customers."
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Contents
Preface
Mathematical Fishing
Mathematical Models: Escaping from Reality
Yucca Mountain: A Million Years of Certainty
How Fast the Rising Sea ?
Following a Wayward Rule
Beaches in an Expected Universe
Giant Cups of Poison
Invasive Plants: An Environmental Apocalypse
A Promise Unfulfilled
Appendix
References
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Waste Disposal Practices Orrin H Pilkey Nuclear Waste Disposal Shoreline Erosion Columbia University Press Mirror Contents Appendix References Erosion Rates Sea Level Rise Environmental Scientists Yucca Mountain Bad Predictions Quantitative Models Invasiv
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