The Incompetent Programmer?

The Telegraph presents an interesting a frightening report on that Brti's model that said the world would come to an end if they did not do what he was telling them. Million would die in no time at all!

The article states:

Imperial’s model appears to be based on a programming language called Fortran, which was old news 20 years ago and, guess what, was the code used for Mariner 1. This outdated language contains inherent problems with its grammar and the way it assigns values, which can give way to multiple design flaws and numerical inaccuracies. One file alone in the Imperial model contained 15,000 lines of code. The approach ignores widely accepted computer science principles known as "separation of concerns", which date back to the early 70s and are essential to the design and architecture of successful software systems. The principles guard against what developers call CACE: Changing Anything Changes Everything. Without this separation, it is impossible to carry out rigorous testing of individual parts to ensure full working order of the whole. Testing allows for guarantees. It is what you do on a conveyer belt in a car factory. Each and every component is tested for integrity in order to pass strict quality controls.

 I used Fortran some fifty plus years ago and yes indeed it is good for certain things and it is highly machine dependent.

As we noted when this set of reckless predictions emerged, the code was not transparent and more importantly it did not reflect the phenomenological elements of the disease. Frankly we still do not understand the propagation characteristics. Masks are one thing but gloves are another. Washing hands only worked when you wash the hands. Wearing gloves prevent touching the face as well as keeping the virus from your skin. But alas the CDC and the Fauci seem to disregard that basic Lab fact. Eye covering is also critical.

But the moral from this British disaster is; first, trust no Academic; second, the phenomenon must be well understood and reliable data must be available, third, open source code that can be peer reviewed must be provided before any predictions can be made. Thus beware Academics and Scientists bearing predictions. Remember avoid Three Card Monty games.