Fooled by local robustness: an applied ecology perspective

Sniedovich, Moshe

doi:10.1890/12-0262.1

Cited by 5 publications

(19 citation statements)

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“…And to illustrate, it suffices to point out that this theory of local robustness was proposed in a recent article as a suitable framework for dealing with Black Swans and … Unknown Unknowns! ( 22 )…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A full discussion of this topic, including commentary on five articles ( 17–21 ) that were published in this journal, can be found elsewhere. ( 22 )…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other representations of info‐gap’s robustness model and info‐gap’s decision model as instances of Wald’s maxi‐min model can be found elsewhere. ( 8,9,22,28,29 )…”

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confidence: 99%

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Fooled by Local Robustness

Sniedovich

2012

Risk Analysis

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One would have expected the considerable public debate created by Nassim Taleb's two best selling books on uncertainty, Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan, to inspire greater caution to the fundamental difficulties posed by severe uncertainty. Yet, methodologies exhibiting an incautious approach to uncertainty have been proposed recently in a range of publications. So, the objective of this short note is to call attention to a prime example of an incautious approach to severe uncertainty that is manifested in the proposition to use the concept radius of stability as a measure of robustness against severe uncertainty. The central proposition of this approach, which is exemplified in info-gap decision theory, is this: use a simple radius of stability model to analyze and manage a severe uncertainty that is characterized by a vast uncertainty space, a poor point estimate, and a likelihood-free quantification of uncertainty. This short discussion serves then as a reminder that the generic radius of stability model is a model of local robustness. It is, therefore, utterly unsuitable for the treatment of severe uncertainty when the latter is characterized by a poor estimate of the parameter of interest, a vast uncertainty space, and a likelihood-free quantification of uncertainty.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A full discussion of this topic, including commentary on five articles ( 17–21 ) that were published in this journal, can be found elsewhere. ( 22 )…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fooled by Local Robustness

Sniedovich

2012

Risk Analysis

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“…In their Letter to the Editor, Information-gap decision theory fills a gap in ecological applications, henceforth Letter, Burgman and Regan (2014) create a spurious, indeed a nonexistent gap in the state of the art, arguing that information-gap decision theory (IGDT) fills this gap. This approach to dealing with the difficulties bedeviling IGDT that are identified and discussed in the article Fooled by local robustness: an applied ecology perspective (Sniedovich 2012a), is yet another vivid illustration of the effect that the huge elephant in the IGDT room has on the manner in which proponents of IGDT discourse on this theory and related topics.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…As my response is unavoidably somewhat lengthy, I begin with a shorthand version thereof, identifying the main points that are covered in it: 1) As proved formally and rigorously in Sniedovich (2010Sniedovich ( , 2012a, IGDT's robustness model is a reinvention of the generic radius of stability model (circa 1960). Hence, there is nothing that IGDT's robustness model does that cannot be done, indeed is being done for decades, with radius of stability models.…”

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Response to Burgman and Regan: The elephant in the rhetoric on info‐gap decision theory

Sniedovich

2014

Ecological Applications

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The formal, rigorous assessment of IGDT in Sniedovich (2012) reveals that this theory's central pillar, namely its robustness model, is a reinvention of a well-established model of local robustness, known universally as radius of stability (circa 1960). As a matter of fact, this robustness model is a simple model derived from Wald's famous maximin paradigm (circa 1940). This means that had there been any gap in the state of the art that IGDT could have possibly presumed to fill, this gap had already been filled decades ago, well before IGDT was even contemplated. The conclusion therefore is that there is no gap in the state of the art that IGDT does fill, or can possibly fill, or is called upon to fill. Also, since IGDT is based on a definition of local robustness, the theory is unsuitable for the treatment of a severe uncertainty of the type that this theory claims to address. Therefore, since the theory claims to be particularly suitable for the treatment of a severe, unbounded uncertainty, the inevitable conclusion is that this theory constitutes a voodoo decision theory par excellence. Fig. 1 speaks for itself so that no amount of rhetoric can explain this fact away. The Letter's attempt to brush off valid, rigorous, well-documented criticism of IGDT as "... haggling over terminology ..." is yet another attempt to avoid dealing with the elephant in the IGDT room. Nothing will be gained from the use of misleading rhetorics to argue that ideas, models, techniques, approaches, etc., that go back to the 1940s and 1960s, are IGDT innovations. But more than this, what good can come of misapplications of these ideas in applied ecology and conservation biology? In the Appendix, I address a more intriguing question, namely: QUESTION 2: What could possibly be the rationale that motivated a search for a (nonexistent) gap in the state of the art for IGDT to fill?

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Assessing uncertainty and performance of ensemble conservation planning strategies

Lin

Anthony

et al. 2018

Landscape and Urban Planning

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Fooled by local robustness: an applied ecology perspective

Cited by 5 publications

References 19 publications

Fooled by Local Robustness

Fooled by Local Robustness

Response to Burgman and Regan: The elephant in the rhetoric on info‐gap decision theory

Assessing uncertainty and performance of ensemble conservation planning strategies

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