Why advanced machine learning methods badly overfit niche models – is this statistical machismo? | Dynamic Ecology

Statistical machismo, as I’ve been defining it in this blog (here and here) is when there is a push to ever newer, more complex methods, often in pursuit of a one-dimensional form of improvem…

Statistical machismo, as I’ve been defining it in this blog ( here and here ) is when there is a push to ever newer, more complex methods, often in pursuit of a one-dimensional form of improvement while ignoring the fact that choosing the proper statistic involves complex trade-offs. For example, hyperfocusing on one source of error while ignoring (or even worsening) other sources of error. Here I want to talk about how the new and the complex sides of statistical machismo interact badly in the most common application of machine learning to ecology to date: niche models (aka species dist

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