{"id":830,"date":"2020-03-23T09:42:07","date_gmt":"2020-03-23T13:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bhide.net\/?p=830"},"modified":"2020-03-23T16:35:57","modified_gmt":"2020-03-23T20:35:57","slug":"conflating-convenience-with-correctness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bhide.net\/wordpress_files\/index.php\/conflating-convenience-with-correctness\/","title":{"rendered":"Conflating Convenience with Correctness"},"content":{"rendered":"
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My email and facebook feed is filled with pictures and videos of exponential growth functions.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The flood originates, I believe, in epidemiological hubris, namely that:<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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1. The form of equation governing infection growth is known and unchanging; and,<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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2. That the parameters of the equation — the now infamous R0 — also don’t change, and therefore can be reliably estimated from the data.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Yes, you can “fit” the initial *recorded* covid infections to an exponential curve — as you could “eyeballs” in the early phases of the 1999 internet bubble. But as Herbert Stein famously observed “if something cannot go on forever it will stop”; very likely, I might add tailing off before it stops for many phenomena. The reasons will of course vary from case to case.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The conflation of the convenience of a mathematical model with is correctness is common in economics (eg Cobb-douglas production functions) and financial risk models (normally distributed price changes). Sometimes, as in 2008, with disastrous consequences.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My email and facebook feed is filled with pictures and videos of exponential growth functions. \u00a0 The flood originates, I<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[31,34,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-blog","category-productive-knowledge","category-public-policy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bhide.net\/wordpress_files\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bhide.net\/wordpress_files\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bhide.net\/wordpress_files\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bhide.net\/wordpress_files\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bhide.net\/wordpress_files\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=830"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bhide.net\/wordpress_files\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":837,"href":"https:\/\/bhide.net\/wordpress_files\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830\/revisions\/837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bhide.net\/wordpress_files\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bhide.net\/wordpress_files\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bhide.net\/wordpress_files\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}