This man is a liar. I improvise all the time and go off recipe amounts that I remember in my head and if I don't, I determine what the appropriate amount of an ingredient is to use.
Baking is the one thing you don't have to be super precise about.

Cooking is something else entirely, though. Beating eggs for a certain amount of time, whipping cream for a certain amount of time and to stop before it's over-whipped, boiling for a certain amount of time, not letting something rise above x temperature for x amount of minutes.
I don't have anything else to contribute about disasters, I just wanted to school Chris.