Useless Arithmetic
Why Environmental Scientists Can't Predict the Future
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Narrated by:
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Gabra Zackman
About this listen
Writing for the general, nonmathematician reader, the authors begin with a riveting account of the extinction of the North Atlantic cod on the Grand Banks of Canada.
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, over-optimistic cost estimates of artificial beaches, and a host of other thorny problems.
Download the accompanying reference guide.©2007 Columbia University Press (P)2008 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"This book is a welcome antidote to the blind use of supposedly quantitative models." (American Scientist)
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Story
In The Vanishing Face of Gaia, British scientist James Lovelock predicts global warming will lead to a Hot Epoch. Lovelock is best known for formulating the controversial Gaia theory in the 1970s, with Ruth Margulis of the University of Massachusetts, which states that organisms interact with and regulate Earth's surface and atmosphere. We ignore this interaction at our peril.
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A New Perspective - A Must Listen - Very Moving
- By Thomas on 01-29-12
By: James Lovelock
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When Life Nearly Died
- The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time
- By: Michael J. Benton
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Today it is common knowledge that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteorite impact 65 million years ago that killed half of all species then living. It is far less widely understood that a much greater catastrophe took place at the end of the Permian period 251 million years ago: at least 90 percent of life on earth was destroyed. When Life Nearly Died documents not only what happened during this gigantic mass extinction, but also the recent renewal of the idea of catastrophism.
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Obscurity to Enlightenment - A Mystery Revealed
- By Dipam on 03-18-21
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Climate Shock
- The Economic Consequences of a Hotter Planet
- By: Gernot Wagner, Martin L. Weitzman
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 4 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Wagner and Martin Weitzman explore in lively, clear terms the likely repercussions of a hotter planet, drawing on and expanding from work previously unavailable to general audiences. They show that the longer we wait to act, the more likely an extreme event will happen. A city might go underwater.
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Nuance, balance, risk management.
- By John Christens on 11-23-23
By: Gernot Wagner, and others
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Pandora's Seed
- The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization
- By: Spencer Wells
- Narrated by: Spencer Wells
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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This new book by Spencer Wells, the internationally known geneticist, anthropologist, author, and director of the Genographic Project, focuses on the seminal event in human history: mankind's decision to become farmers rather than hunter-gatherers.
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Short and unfocused, but often quite interesting.
- By Alan on 06-23-10
By: Spencer Wells
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Dark Winter
- How the Sun Is Causing a 30-Year Cold Spell
- By: John L. Casey
- Narrated by: David Stifel
- Length: 5 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Climate change has been a perplexing problem for years. Casey's research into the Sun's activity, which began almost a decade ago, resulted in discovery of a solar cycle that is now reversing from its global warming phase to that of dangerous global cooling for the next 30 years or more. This new cold climate will dramatically impact the world's citizens.
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Global Warming Is A Hoax
- By Catamount on 11-20-17
By: John L. Casey
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The Story of Earth
- The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet
- By: Robert M. Hazen
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Earth evolves. From first atom to molecule, mineral to magma, granite crust to single cell to verdant living landscape, ours is a planet constantly in flux. In this radical new approach to Earth’s biography, senior Carnegie Institution researcher and national best-selling author Robert M. Hazen reveals how the co-evolution of the geosphere and biosphere - of rocks and living matter - has shaped our planet into the only one of its kind in the Solar System, if not the entire cosmos.
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Makes minerals interesting
- By Gary on 07-31-12
By: Robert M. Hazen
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Harmony
- A New Way of Looking at Our World
- By: Charles HRH The Prince of Wales
- Narrated by: Charles HRH The Prince of Wales
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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For the first time, HRH The Prince of Wales shares his views on how our most pressing modern challenges - from climate change to poverty - are rooted in mankind's disharmony with nature, presenting a compelling case that the solution lies in our ability to regain a balance with the world around us. With its holistic approach, this provocative and well-reasoned book takes the discussion of sustainability and climate change in a new direction.
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An Excellent Exploration
- By Sara on 03-31-16
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The Real Global Warming Disaster
- Is the Obsession with 'Climate Change' Turning Out to Be the Most Costly Scientific Blunder in History?
- By: Christopher Booker
- Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
- Length: 16 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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This original audiobook considers one of the most extraordinary scientific and political stories of our time: how in the 1980s a handful of scientists came to believe that mankind faced catastrophe from runaway global warming, and how today this has persuaded politicians to land us with what promises to be the biggest bill in history. Christopher Booker interweaves the science of global warming with that of its growing political consequences, showing how just when the politicians are threatening to change our Western way of life beyond recognition, the scientific evidence behind the global warming theory is being challenged like never before.
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The message made my blood boil
- By George on 10-14-14
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Collapse
- How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
- By: Jared Diamond
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 27 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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In Jared Diamond’s follow-up to the Pulitzer-Prize winning Guns, Germs and Steel, the author explores how climate change, the population explosion, and political discord create the conditions for the collapse of civilization. Environmental damage, climate change, globalization, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of societies around the world, but some found solutions and persisted.
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Jared Diamond Downs You in Explanation
- By Rob on 07-20-18
By: Jared Diamond
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Warnings
- Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes
- By: Richard A. Clarke, R.P. Eddy
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 12 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Warnings is the story of the future of national security, threatening technologies, the US economy, and possibly the fate of civilization. In Greek mythology Cassandra foresaw calamities, but was cursed by the gods to be ignored. Modern-day Cassandras clearly predicted the disasters of Katrina, Fukushima, the Great Recession, the rise of ISIS, and many more. Like the mythological Cassandra, they were ignored. There are others right now warning of impending disasters, but how do we know which warnings are likely to be right?
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On prediction, catastrophe and mitigation
- By S. Yates on 02-28-18
By: Richard A. Clarke, and others
What listeners say about Useless Arithmetic
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- 3.14
- 02-12-11
Interesting but a narrow focus
A much needed expose on the inadequacies of quantitative modeling for environmental systems. A lot of the subject matter seemed to have a narrow focus; i.e. hours of information on beach erosion was not what I expected. Disappointingly, less time was spent discussing climate models. When referencing figures, the robotic phrase "Please reference downloadable pdf from product page where purchased" occurs frequently.
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Overall
- Bill
- 03-10-11
Interesting, useful...but...
This book is fascinating for someone interested in the Philosophy of "knowing". Scientist are regularly trying to capture magnificently complex systems in mathematical models that are, at best, applicable within a small range of parameters. No big deal...scientists do that. What is a big deal is that politicians and regulators then use those mathematical models to make decisions in the real world. Some of those decisions have had tragic results. If that interests you (as it did me), please read this book. If not you'll be bored to death.
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- Bill McCullough
- 11-10-15
Nothing to see here, re: modeling
Unless, you are interested in examples of earth processes (e.g., Beach erosion, ground water, non-native species encroachment), then will teach you nothing about modeling and their issues. Moreover, they offer few potential solutions. Bored to tears.
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- Pierluigi
- 12-12-11
Disappointing
It's about useless arithmetic, but I think it is a pretty useless book too... I personally found it very boring and repetitive.
The concept in a nutshell is: don't trust mathematical models for complex systems, they can be twisted and bent to produce pretty much any result you want them to produce. Politics often gets in the way. In itself, not a bad topic altogether, but the examples it provides are dealt with ineffectively, with the same concepts repeated on and on and a lot of irrlevant material making things worse.
The authors also claim that less sophisticated models, which provide "qualitative" rather than "quantitative" predictions are better than complex ones and more useful. I have a hard time agreeing with this statement. Being an engineer, I've seen plenty of oversimplified models which simply could not capture the essence of certain phenomena and in the end completely failed to reproduce reality, even at the "qualitative" level.
Even though some interesting information is present in this book, it is buried within a lot of redundant and often irrelevant material and in the end there is no really useful recommendation that comes out of this book, except for a generic caveat againts making important decision based on mathematical "models" that can be wrong or misleading for a number of reasons.
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