Focus your reading on the core argument in the Breiman article. This means readling the Introduction and Discussion carefully, skimming through the examples and case studies, and ignoring the comments and replies that follow the main article.

  • Breiman talks about two cultures in statistics. Do you think an analogous argument could be made in ecology?

  • Why might reliance on data models lead to “questionable conclusions”?

  • What solution does Breiman propose to improve checks on the fit of data to models?

  • What is the “multiplicity” problem, a.k.a. “Rashomon effect,” and how does it complicate interpretation of models? Can you think of examples where this occurs in ecology?