Writing for the general, nonmathematician reader and using examples from
throughout the environmental sciences, Orrin Pilkey and Linda
Pilkey-Jarvis show how unquestioned faith in mathematical models can
blind us to the hard data and sound judgment of experienced scientific
fieldwork. They begin with the extinction of the North Atlantic cod on
the Grand Banks of Canada, and then they discuss the limitations of many
models across a broad array of crucial environmental subjects. Case
studies depict 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 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.