[ RadSafe ] Forecasting Principles

[KARAM, PHILIP]

For those of you who are interested, I located a PDF of the paper "Global Warming: Forecasts by Scientists versus Scientific Forecasts." It makes for very interesting reading and, although much of the discussion centers around the IPCC report on climate change, there is much that applies to health physics as well. The paper is here: http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/files/WarmAudit31.pdf

In addition, there is a website dedicated to forecasting principles that includes a checklist of these principles and a bunch of other information. The website is here:  http://forecastingprinciples.com/
and the checklist is here: http://forecastingprinciples.com/files/standardshort.pdf

Examples of some of the principles are:

-Describe decisions that might be affected by forecasts (1.1)
-Make sure forecasts are independent of politics (1.3)
-Use theory to guide the search for information on explanatory variables (3.1)
-Avoid biased data sources (3.3)
-Use diverse sources of data (3.4)

It goes on - well over 100 principles - but you get the idea. Not everything, of course, is relevant to what we do, but you can see that some of the principles certainly are worth keeping in mind.

Andy


P. Andrew Karam, PhD, CHP
Radiological Operations
NYPD Counterterrorism
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