Big Question: Limits to Modeling and Prediction

Principal Investigator: Robert Rosner, Astronomy & Astrophysics

Funding Type: Workshop

Focus Area: Information, Complexity

Big Idea: Many of today’s most controversial issues facing public policy – from climate change to vaccination to effective STEM education – revolve around the question of how certain the practitioners are in their predictions, as well as how effective these practitioners are in accurately (and convincingly) portraying their conclusions in the public realm.   We will host a workshop focused on how various disciplines, from the natural to the social sciences, deal with uncertainty.   By bringing together scientists, lawyers and policy makers who have dealt with such issues, we aim to explore and build connections that can improve our common understanding of uncertainty as well as its explication to the public.