5:15-6.02:
"Anyone who has an opinion on these kinds of topics has some kind of model in their head, its just an implicit model that can't be compared with data, and can't be tested for internal consistency, and can't be the basis of a disciplined analysis of anything. My favourite point is that everyone is a modeller, the only difference is that some people are implicit modellers, when nobody really knows what their model is, including themselves, and some people are explicit modellers, where we try to write it out carefully, and then we can get rid of what's bad, improve on what's good, and compare it to data, and be hard nosed about it. But on these types of problems [small pox] there's just no hope of thinking about it without a model"
Hopefully it won't be good enough to state an opinion without showing all the assumptions that sit behind it. Many opinions are simple views on complex systems, which cannot be understand without a computer model. Intellectual bullying is done by the people who have an 'instinct' or 'intuitive' opinion. e.g. something that satisfies their egos, but does not correlate with the real world.
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