Predictions: The good and the bad and the uncertain

This week's video was extremely interesting to me. More specifically the conversation around the Covid-19 pandemic and how simulations and models for outcomes came into the forefront for scientists on how the pandemic could play out. While listening about this, I could not help but think back to the conversations that we have had in class where you said that you did simple calculations to determine that you would not be returning to Harvard anytime soon. Furthermore, I found it quite interesting thinking about the multitude of different outcomes for predictions of this scale. Relating it back to the Trump v Hillary example, there was predictions that forecasted Hillary to get 67% of the votes while Trump would receive 33% of the votes. Now, understanding our current reality and the mathematics behind prediction, we see that these are what they are, predictions and not reality. In terms of Covid, I think that this game of predictions and the science/mathematics that we were using definitely gave us a lot of information, however, it could have just as easily caused a lot of harm if the predictions were far off the actual course of the pandemic.

While asking the questions during the interview, I would have like to hear more about the impacts that this form of prediction, specifically relating to the predictions of the Covid-19 pandemic, could have had on the safety and wellbeing of people around the world. I think it is fascinating that some headlines or news articles falsely describe the reality we are living in. I would have liked to hear more about how we can prevent this from happening and if there are any modes of addressing false narratives from being portrayed to the public.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/108MSJWvgct6221x2upJVCl7OYNzcs13K/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10BUoKNP-7HYi35oI-eEY-EjPybuHfpkU/view?usp=sharing