REPLY The Death of System Dynamics? (SD6226)

[System Dynamics Mailing List]

Posted by  "Jay W. Forrester" <jforestr at MIT.EDU>

We have recently seen many postings lamenting the slow growth and 
lack of acceptance of system dynamics.  But, is system dynamics yet 
ready for more?

There seem to be expectations that the field of system dynamics 
should be given the status of a fully developed profession when, in 
fact, it is in the earliest stages of its development.  Compared to 
its potential, system dynamics is perhaps now at about the stage that 
engineering was in the 1860s when MIT was founded, or the stage of 
medicine when the Johns Hopkins medical school was started in the 
late 1800s.  In comparison to medicine, many of the messages in this 
thread seem to have expectations for our field that would be like a 
person with two years of premed followed by several years as an 
emergency medical technician on an ambulance wanting to have people 
then flock to him for heart transplants.

System dynamics has the potential to be a full-fledged profession 
with the depth and range of skills seen in engineering or medicine. 
However, at this time, the academic programs in system dynamics 
should be considered only as introductory courses.  So far, I see 
little discussion of building the kind of academic and apprenticeship 
framework necessary for creating truly professional competence in the 
field.

System dynamics is now on a plateau.  It has gone about as far as it 
can based on the presently available foundation of concepts and 
educational opportunities.  I am not saying that the far more 
advanced basis for a true profession should already have been done, 
any more that it would have been productive to have been anguished in 
1860 that one still lacked the professional fields that would allow 
going to the moon.

Our situation arises partly from the fact that even a tiny amount of 
systems insight seems so revealing to those who have never previously 
ventured into the systems jungle.  Those who have only been exposed 
to the loose talk of "systems thinking"  find it sufficiently helpful 
that they think they have arrived, when actually they are probably 
only about one per cent of the way into systems.  Likewise, the 
majority of those who have achieved the present average level of 
skill in system dynamics find it so powerful that they feel they 
have learned it all, when actually they have gone only a few 
percent of the way into the unknown of nonlinear feedback systems.

Perhaps this quote will help show the magnitude of the task ahead. It 
is from Ladis D. Kovach, in the paper, "Life Can Be So Nonlinear," in 
the American Scientist, Vol 48, No. 2, June 1960:

    "We have broken through the sonic barrier,... we are now at the 
     threshhold of the nonlinear barrier.   This last seems the most 
     insurmountable.  Strange that these nonlinear phenomena that 
     abound so widely in nature should be so intractable.., It is 
     almost as if Man is to be denied a complete knowledge of the 
     universe unless he makes a superhuman effort to solve its 
     nonlinearities... So far, our efforts to scale the nonlinear 
     barrier have consisted of chiselling a few footholds which are 
     low enough so that we can always keep one foot on linear ground.  
     We have, so to speak, located a few nonlinear zippers in the 
     blanket of nonlinearity that covers us.  Opening these zippers 
     has allowed us to put our hand through and try to fathom the 
     vast unknown in this way. ... While the solutions to linear 
     problems can be called prefabricated, the solutions to 
     nonlinear problems are custom made. ...    The nonlinear 
     barrier appears to be one of nature's least vulnerable 
     strongholds.  Only vigorous attack from several directions 
     can hope to prevail against it."

When I have time I will try to continue with more on what next.
Posted by  "Jay W. Forrester" <jforestr at MIT.EDU>
posting date  Fri, 2 Feb 2007 18:57:31 -0500