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Simulating History: The Problem of Contingency
Author(s) -
Mandel David R.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
analyses of social issues and public policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.479
H-Index - 31
eISSN - 1530-2415
pISSN - 1529-7489
DOI - 10.1111/j.1530-2415.2003.00022.x
Subject(s) - prosperity , contingency , affect (linguistics) , contingency plan , outcome (game theory) , psychology , economics , social psychology , positive economics , computer science , computer security , mathematical economics , epistemology , economic growth , communication , philosophy
Simulations of world history, like the real thing, are complex systems whose outcomes most often (if not always) constitute highly contingent events. Rarely (if ever) will researchers be able to find unqualified main effects that explain important outcome measures that affect the security and prosperity of the world community. The problem of contingency for testing hypotheses about the causes of certain types of outcomes (e.g., mass killing, starvation, economic collapse) from only a few simulations of history is discussed with reference to the Global Change Game simulation reported by Altemeyer (2003) .