[FRIAM] Kudos to the social scientists

[Marcus G. Daniels]

PPARYSKI at aol.com wrote:
> The ethical use of applied complexity and agent based modeling is an 
> issue that deserves critical and thoughtful debate. Is it ethical to 
> use these tools to further destruction in Iraq or Afghanistan or to 
> use data mining to spy on private individuals?
One concern I have about the use of agent models is that it can easily 
amount to "let's make an accusation and see if it sticks" where sticking 
is often poorly defined in the wrong hands.    If a model's results can 
be interpreted in a lot of ways, and decision makers have an affinity 
for a certain one (e.g. a political or ideological motive), then it just 
becomes a tool for rationalizing actions.    Writing simulations is 
largely programming and programming tends to be a goal oriented thing..

Marcus