title: Predictability, complexity, and catastrophe in a collapsible model of population, development, and environmental interactions.
abstract: "More and more population forecasts are being produced with associated 95 percent confidence intervals. How confident are we of those confidence intervals? In this paper, we produce a simulated dataset in which we know both past and future population sizes, and the true 95 percent confidence intervals at various future dates. We use the past data to produce population forecasts and estimated 95 percent confidence intervals using various functional forms. We, then, compare the true 95 percent confidence intervals with the estimated ones. This comparison shows that we are not at all confident of the estimated 95 percent confidence intervals." (SUMMARY IN FRE)
authors.forename: W C
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: Sanderson
mesh_terms: D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005544:Forecasting; D011158:Population Growth; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012106:Research; D012107:Research Design; D013223:Statistics as Topic
keywords: Error Sources; Estimation Technics; Evaluation; Evaluation Methodology; Measurement; Population Forecast; Population Growth Estimation; Population Projection; Reliability; Research Methodology; World