From
Maggie's Farm, a memoir of World War II:
“Some of my colleagues had the responsibility of preparing long-range weather forecasts, i.e., for the following month,” Arrow wrote. “The statisticians among us subjected these forecasts to verification and found they differed in no way from chance.”
Alarmed, Arrow and his colleagues tried to bring this important discovery to the attention of the commanding officer. At last the word came down from a high-ranking aide.
“The Commanding General is well aware that the forecasts are no good,” the aide said haughtily. “However, he needs them for planning purposes.”
I've done enough military planning that the response makes a kind of sense to me. The plan will of course include inclement weather sub-plans; but we need a baseline for the purpose of writing the order.
ReplyDeleteSo even if the model is no better than chance, it's fine. Whatever it says will be the baseline, and then we'll include all the probable variant orders as inclement weather plans.
The General is wise- he knows what he does not know. Unlike the AGW fear mongers.
ReplyDeleteIf we wanted a baseline that was no better than chance, looks like it would be easier to throw dice.
ReplyDelete