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Can a mathematical model save us from zombies or stop the obesity epidemic? At least, it can be of help to us, but only if we use it well. This is what Anabel Forte, mathematician and professor at the University of Valencia, is in charge of, who assures that statistics is one of the keys to advancing science.
Anabel Forte is a statistician and scientific communicator. As a good science communicator, she knows how to stay with her audience because she engages her audience with zombie invasions and ends up talking to them about mathematical models, how statistics help us explain pharmacokinetics in our body and why scientific quality suffers if researchers They only publish the positive results and keep quiet about the negative ones.
Forte, a researcher at the University of Valencia, stopped by Madrid to give a conference titled 'Where to flee when zombies attack?' Statistics between reality and the model'. And although that was the first and main question of this interview, we left there without an answer because there is a trick to it: she works between reality and the model, investigating how to build a bridge to apply the formulas that effectively save us from the Walking Dead. She's on it.
How much do you really know about techniques for hiding from zombies?
Well, I know a little! [laughs]. The zombie thing arose because apart from doing statistical mathematics, I like dissemination and I needed a title for my presentation that would attract attention. I remembered that, when everyone was hooked on 'The Walking Dead', they published some articles on statistical models about zombies that were precisely the ones I was studying... And I said: well, it's the perfect hook.
Statistical models on zombies?
They are models that explain how epidemics behave: how you go from being susceptible to having the disease, from being in recovery to having recovered... You can be in different boxes and with a differential equation model we explain how you go from one to the other. and with what ease.
Equations against zombies, they should be explained like this in high schools...
These models are used for many things. They are also used to describe social epidemics, such as obesity, smoking or alcoholism. Also in pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, which are areas of pharmacology that help us find out how much of a drug we have to take, how it is distributed and how long it takes to leave the body.
He says that these models are very well known. What exactly do you do with them?
Yes, these models are very studied and mathematically very beautiful, but reality is never the same as the model. There is always a gap between reality and theory, and it must be taken into account because, if not, the estimate does not work. What I dedicate myself to is that little piece that exists between reality and the model. Let's see how this uncertainty can be taken into account so that the model is really useful.
