Waubonsee Community College

Useless arithmetic, why environmental scientists can't predict the future, Orrin H. Pilkey & Linda Pilkey-Jarvis

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 213-221) and index

mapsillustrations

index present

non fiction

Useless arithmetic

bibliography

65207068

Orrin H. Pilkey & Linda Pilkey-Jarvis

"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."--Jacket

why environmental scientists can't predict the future

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