And So We Model: The Ineffective Use of Mathematical Models in Ecological Risk Assessments

摘要

The article, “Separating the Wheat from the Chaff: The Effective Use of Mathematical Models as Decision Tools,” printed in Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management (Glaser and Bridges 2007), gives this author great cause to articulate a vastly contrary perspective on the need for and utility of mathematical models in the field of ecological risk assessment (ERA). I will argue that, in the subject article, modeling is far from being an asset to the ERA process, and I will also endeavor to demonstrate that modeling is often a hindrance to our work in this field. I believe my impetus for writing here, thereby effectively launching a formal debate over the merits of modeling, is the rather apparent bias in the Glaser and Bridges paper. What comes across more than anything is simply a sense of infatuation with models on the part of the authors; the authors can find no shortage of applications for models to facilitate decision making, and the prospect of models generating information that is either incorrect or not serviceable is plainly not discussed. This debate/commentary piece is generally patterned after the series of observations and conclusions in the Glaser and Bridges article, but additional arguments are also supplied to paint a completely different picture of mathematical models as decision tools.