A farsighted example

In my school days and early years of my Bachelor's degree I use to hear a lot that Statistics is a simple matter, that it is easier than other sisters of the family of Mathematics. The message deeply rooted and carved a groove into my mind that led me into a major disinterest for Statistics and the science involved within.

I know not who nor on what grounds divulged such nonsense and lie -it is a lie. Statistics are not straightforward at all, but formal and cumbersome; unless, of course, you resign yourself to be happy with the 2+2 level (kindergarten level) of concepts of mean and standard deviation.

These days I am struggling with the details of a tool called time-series analysis -something kind of old, but new somehow for me-. The mathematics involved -if you want to be rigorous- are obtrusive and tricky, and the proliferation of computer aids and software makes the whole thing even more slippery -as they are entire black boxes. There are many weapons in science quite dangerous because they allow doing things without knowing the stuff: the first example is the "rule of three"; the last, all these computer, modelling and simulation craziness around us.

In particular, the measurements or inferences on which the climate and/or weather studies (the terms refer to different concepts) are based are, indeed, series in time that need to be analyzed rigorously. After a few weeks of time-series studies, I can see where all complications and disagreements among the scientific community might come from (leaving apart, of course, lies or faked data).

This morning in the tube I read that the speed of winds up in the North reached yesterday to 165 mph, contrary to the top 90 mph "predicted". I said to myself: Jesus! What kind of models we are using that we calculate numbers with such an extraordinarily, anti-scientific error?

This is a farsighted example of the stuff we still don't know... And we think we do.

Nowadays I feel Science is presented as an activity consisting of "pushing boundaries". However, in many instances we are still to learn the basic things of Nature; things that have been there for ages and still we don't know... We are, for example, incapable of explaining to the fullest the motion of a stream of water or a gust of wind.

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