REPLY Renaming System Dynamics (SD6375)

[SDMAIL James Melhuish]

Posted by  James Melhuish <james at melhuish.org>

I am somewhat surprised at the range of replies to the original message 
Capitalizing System Dynamics, now Renaming.  I probably should not have 
been...

SUMMARY:

I think the issue of capitalizing System Dynamics (and/or renaming...) 
is important if we wish to strengthen knowledge of the field outside of 
our own circle of influence.  My concern is that the current name of the 
field, system dynamics, gets easily lost in written form and therefore 
newcomers will not understand that there is a consolidated body of work 
called System Dynamics (that has continued without major theoretical 
change for 50 years).  We should continue this discussion at the 
conference, and afterwards.

A counterpoint is found in the Chicago Manual of Style. The closest 
reference to capitalization of a field/methodology is under 7.120 (LAWS, 
PRINCIPLES, AND THE LIKE).  "Only proper names attached to the names of 
laws, theorems, principles, and the like are capitalized:

  big bang theory
  Boyle's law
  the second law of thermodynamics
  (Einstein's) general theory of relativity"

That said, do we think that SD is properly and adequately represented to 
people outside of our community?  Do people understand and remember what 
we do, and that what we do is more general than vehicle system dynamics?

I would like to be convinced that my request for capitalization is not 
necessary; that system dynamics is well known throughout the scientific, 
management science, and social science world.  But I am not yet reassured.  
See point (6) below.

SOME DETAILS:

(1)  I think we should be VERY careful about a decision to rename the field 
     of SD.  Knowledgeable people have been talking about SD for 40+ years 
     (and about industrial dynamics for even longer).  I don't support a 
     dramatic name change.

(2)  I have no problem with system dynamicists choosing to capitalize or not 
     when publishing in the SD Review or SD conferences.  As George Richardson 
     says, "we could continue to be loose about it".  We all know what WE are 
     talking about.

For example "building models of population system dynamics" is properly written 
in lower case.

(3)  What I am concerned about, and why I wrote the original post, is the 
awareness or recognition of our *field* by the general population (scientific 
or lay).  Again George said:

"But suppose we wanted to flag we're talking about a field.
Then it seems right to  capitalize:  "System Dynamics."  The capitals
would tell the reader that what we mean at that moment is a set of
scholarly traditions, literature, professional practice, and tools."

(4)  Regarding John Morecroft's practical solution of separating "named 
approaches" and "fields".  How do we, or the majority of people who read 
about our work, separate or even recognize the difference between "named 
approaches" and "fields"?  Almost everybody knows about *economics*, very 
few (I wager) know about *Soft Systems Methodology*.  When meeting system 
dynamics in a sentence, does the average reader know that this is a field?  
Is system dynamics in fact a named approach?

(5)  Further reinforcement comes from Bob Cavana, Monte Kietpawpan, and 
John Gunkler.

Searching for work related to "system dynamics" is difficult.

Very specific names like "cybernetics" make a field more distinct.

Branding is an important method of establishing a presence in a person's 
mind.  system dynamics has very little *brand* worthiness; capitalizing helps 
a bit (my opinion).

Many references I have seen refer to SD as "Forrester-style modeling" or 
"Limits to Growth modeling".  Obviously these authors don't realize (or want 
to use) the term System Dynamics.

(6)  Google search on "system dynamics" returns 59 SD references from the first 
100 hits (59%).  Is that good enough for us?

By contrast, a google search on "operations research" returns 100 OR references 
from 100 hits (100%).

James
Posted by  James Melhuish <james at melhuish.org>
posting date  Sat, 31 Mar 2007 00:29:28 -0500