Self-Promotion! June 16, 2009
Posted by Will Thomas in Uncategorized.Tags: Dynamical Systems Collective, Jay Forrester, Lambert Williams
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Aside from blogging, I, in fact, also do research and produce academic works. Typically I try not to blog excessively about my own work, but it seems a pity not to try and bring the two together from time to time. So, I wanted to draw attention to a two-part series appearing in the latest Science in Context that I wrote with my friend and former grad school colleague Lambert Williams. Both papers have both our names on them, and were formulated largely in tandem, but (as the writing styles will evidence) we do have our respective halves of the series.
My half is a new consideration of Jay Forrester’s system dynamics simulation methodology, which he originated at MIT circa 1960. It’s best known through its role in the 1970s “Limits to Growth” affair, but rather than recapitulate the tit-for-tat of the various proponents and critics of his simulation project, I wanted to try and elucidate what made this project so appealing to him that he has remained with it through the present. To a large extent, system dynamics has meshed into the larger background of computer simulation (more…)
Harvard Conference April 28, 2008
Posted by Will Thomas in Uncategorized.Tags: Lambert Williams
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It’s been almost a week since the last entry, because I’ve been back up in my Cambridge, Mass. stomping grounds at a highly interdisciplinary conference on “Instability and Decomposition” put together by my friend, collaborator, and former colleague Lambert Williams. There were a lot of pretty sharp presentations on a really diverse array of topics. I gave a revised version of my Air and Space Museum talk (with even more diagrams, which seem to be going over well). This talk sets itself up in opposition to arguments where the big story is how patronage and politics shape the scientific policy advice being received. I don’t say this isn’t the case, but try and bring the analysis in new directions by reframing the motivation of policy scientists as being the improvement of policy (rather than dictation) through analysis, and by recasting policymakers as intellectual participants in the policy science process.
The only thing I want to talk about with respect to the conference is that only a couple of the talks really set up any sort of argument with the literature. There was an interesting friction between two papers, one of which framed itself using Homi Bhabha’s postcolonial critique, and another that set itself up in opposition to it (in a way that had some odd resonances with my paper, actually). Now, I don’t know the first thing about Bhabha’s critique, but it still gave the papers a little spice, a sense that something was being achieved. I find it strange that most papers don’t try and throw out a few sparks.
Anyway, Jenny wanted me to offer a few opinions on her summary of our debate last week before she posts, so I’ll do that at first opportunity, so we can get that up. And I swear I’ll get back to my string on Holmes, as well as maybe talk about R&D.
Ether Wave Propaganda 