This is a loaded question. This diary is stimulated by a paper put out at the New England Center Systems Institute (NECSI). The paper is entitled The Food Crises: A Quantitative Model of Food Prices Including Speculators and Ethanol Conversion and has its central thesis spelled out in this abstract:
Recent increases in basic food prices are severely impacting vulnerable populations worldwide. Proposed causes such as shortages of grain due to adverse weather, increasing meat consumption in China and India, conversion of corn to ethanol in the US, and investor speculation on commodity markets lead to widely differing implications for policy. A lack of clarity about which factors are responsible reinforces policy inaction. Here, for the first time, we construct a dynamic model that quantitatively agrees with food prices. The results show that the dominant causes of price increases are investor speculation and ethanol conversion. Models that just treat supply and demand are not consistent with the actual price dynamics. The two sharp peaks in 2007/2008 and 2010/2011 are specifically due to investor speculation, while an underlying trend is due to increasing demand from ethanol conversion. The model includes investor trend-following as well as shifting between commodities, equities and bonds to take advantage of increased expected returns. Claims that speculators cannot influence grain prices are shown to be invalid by direct analysis of price setting practices of granaries. Both causes of price increase, speculative investment and ethanol conversion, are promoted by recent regulatory changes—deregulation of the commodity markets, and policies promoting the conversion of corn to ethanol. Rapid action is needed to reduce the impacts of the price increases on global hunger.
What I'd like to discuss is the role of such "scientific" studies in making political decisions and taking political action. Read on below to follow this thread.
Of course we will have to deal with the question "Is this really science?" since every time I write about complexity science there are those who react from the Cartesian Reductionist camp and deny that it is or ever could be. If one is a Cartesian Reductionist/Mechanist you have to take this position in spite of the many University Centers and the myriad of books and journals that testify that in the context of modern society you are just dead wrong!
NECSI is a very interesting organization with a very interesting history. It was started by the Harvard, MIT, and other New England scientists who recognized that the Santa Fe Institute had made a beachhead and was getting funds. Now it was safe to venture forth. I gave a three hour tutorial on Complexity Theory at their first meeting in 1996. I was (and still am) a Senior Fellow in our Center for the Study of Complex Biological Systems at Virginia Commonwealth University and had been publishing on Complexity Theory for some time.
The irony in what I have just written is that from the perspective of the Complexity Theory I practice, this paper is closer to classical Cartesian Reductionism than Complexity Theory. Let me show you the abstract of my last publication to make the contrast more solid (From Axiomathes (23 August 2010), pp. 1-17: Even More than Life Itself: Beyond Complexity
This essay is an attempt to construct an artificial dialog loosely modeled after that sought by Robert Maynard Hutchins who was a significant influence on many of us including and especially Robert Rosen. The dialog is needed to counter the deep and devastating effects of Cartesian reductionism on todayâs world. The success of such a dialog is made more probable thanks to the recent book by A. Louie. This book makes a rigorous basis for a new paradigm, the one pioneered by the late Robert Rosen. If we are to make such a paradigm shift happen, it has to be in the spirit of the dialog. The relationship between science, economics, technology and politics has to be openly recognized and dealt with. The message that Rosen sent to us has to be told outside small select circles of devotees. The situation has even been described by some as resembling a cult. This is no way for universal truths like these to be seen. The essay examines why this present situation has happened and identifies the systemic nature of the problem in terms of Rosenâs concepts about systems. The dialog involves works by George Lakoff, W. Brian Arthur, N. Katherine Hayles, Robert Reich and Dorion Sagan. These scholars each have their own approach to identifying the nature of the interacting systems that involve human activity and the importance of identifying levels of abstraction in analyzing systems. Pooling their insights into different facets of a complex system is very useful in constructing a model of the self referential system that humans and their technology have shaped. The role of the human component in the whole earth system is the goal of the analysis. The impact of the Cartesian reductionist paradigm on science and the related aspects of human activity are examined to establish an explanation for the isolation of Rosenâs paradigm. The possible way to proceed is examined in the conclusion.
The book by Louie is all Category Theory, a very sophisticated modern mathematical endeavor. One of its main points is that true complexity is not able to be modeled on a computer, with which clearly NECSI does not agree.
That brings us to the point of this diary. We have experienced a lot of right wing know nothing reaction to the idea that we humans are doing bad things to the planet and the climate as well as using resources in a manner that is so far from being sustainable that it is frightening. I have watched the die hard reductionists pour out computer model after computer model. Computers, using mechanistic models of complex reality, can do wonderful things. I have a large number of publications, including a book, about computer models of very complicated biological systems. The bottom line to all this is that we have weakened our position by demanding that the public believe that our maps are actually the territory. Our models are always a surrogate reality and can only do what we tell them to do. That means that they are based on partial knowledge at best.
The creationists and the other right wing know nothings have used this to great advantage. I am going to be explaining this along with Jim Coffman in a new book. Suffice it to say for now that this NECSI paper is a very vulnerable way to try to make a political point. We are simply giving the nay sayers more fuel. I am waiting for the first comment that says: "We knew this already!" Yes we did. I think the path the people in NECSI have taken will not help us. Correct me if I have erred.