Nice article entitled “All models are wrong, but some are completely wrong” by Martin Goodson. It looks at some of the mistakes and lessons learnt from the IPCC’s experience of interfacing with the public and policy actors, and draws some conclusions for the situation with COVID19 and modelling.

It suggests 6 “rules”:

1. Scientists and journalists should express the level of uncertainty associated with a forecast

2. Journalists must get quotes from other experts before publishing

3. Scientists should clearly describe the critical inputs and assumptions of their models

4. Be as transparent as possible (including releasing code and data)

5. Policy-makers should use multiple models to inform policy

6. Indicate when a model was produced by somebody without a background in infectious diseases

Article available at: https://rssdss.design.blog/2020/03/31/all-models-are-wrong-but-some-are-completely-wrong/