Escape from Model Land
How Mathematical Models Can Lead Us Astray and What We Can Do About It

Over the last few years a number of books, notably Sabine Hossenfelder's Lost in Math, David Orrell's Economyths, Cathy O Neil's Weapons of Math Destruction and Tim Palmer's The Primacy of Doubt, have pointed out problems with the mathematical modelling done by businesses, physicists, meteorologists......more

Erica Thompson is a senior fellow at the London School of Economics’ Data Science Institute and a fellow of the London Mathematical Laboratory. She has worked on models relating to COVID-19, public policy, and climate change. She might be the last person you would expect to say, therefore, that “fol......more

Astrology == Mathematics. For Sufficiently Large Values Of 2 While Imagining Spherical Cows. Thompson does a truly excellent job here of showing how and where mathematical models of real-world systems can be useful, and where they can lead us astray - perhaps a bit *too* good, as at times she has to......more

Very academic in style from the start mentioning qualitative and quantitative exits to “Model Land” — a construct I found a bit hard to really get my bearings around — this was a book i found more challenging than other recent ones. Has some interesting deep dives in how models do lead us astray inc......more

Okay, this book makes a useful argument. Thank you Erica. But, like many academic books, the argument could be made well enough through a much shorter summary. I'd recommend first starting with the podcast with Erica Thompson on Volts, which is great, and you probably don't need to read the whole bo......more