some interesting comments. (I will reserve my position on what is conveyed by his signature line about reason and democracy, because I do not think they exist in abstract, but that would be another thread title.)
>> Why not file it under, that's-probably-true?
>
>Because of a simple observation: there are very few (hundreds at most)
>examples of arms races. Far too little data to support such abstract
>models.
Good point but I would reply, our models of reality do not have to be limited to those on which we can gather large amounts of quantifiable empirical data. That would be empiricism.
But more widely, an arms race is a subset of conflict. Conflict can be studied in many forms and we all have to learn about it from infancy anyway.
>This would not be the case if we were dealing with fundamental
>phenomenae, as in the physicists search for a theory of everything, but
>when one is attempting to add questionable variables -- "fear," for
>example, but nothing to do with military-iundustrial elite formations --
>well then we're pretty well into "science-in-search-of-funding," and
>"history-minus-the-participants."
Of course I accept there will be a fair bit of science in search of funding in how the particular aritcle that gave rise to this thread title, presents itself. It is highly likely to be simplistic.
>> What we are talking about is not reality but models of reality. It is most
>> unlikely that variables covary in a constant rectilinear way. Especially
>> not with living entities.
>
>Oh it's absolutely certain. The problem is WAY too many nonlinear
>variables, and WAY too few data sets. Chaos theory is far too primitive
>to make sense of this, except as a suggestive hueristic. And I say this
>as a fan of chaos theory, but a bigger fan of keeping your head on
>straight & not making too inviting a target for those who'd like to
>shoot you down.
I am in a lot of sympathy with this. Any serious study of chaos theory requires some sort of way of deciding how to sift what is scientific within it and what is hype. That is one reason why I appreciate your challenge and am willing to engage in this sort of clarification as I think it is a necessary exercise.
>> Computers give the tools to model non-linear iterative systems. More
>> funding will head towards the development of more sophisticated models,
>> which will sound decreasingly mechanical the more variables they include.
>
>Chaos is unrelated to the number of variables.
Accepted.
>> The overall picture has some features described by dialectical materialism,
>> before fast computers had been invented. Or Daoism.
>
>True but potentially mystifying. IMHO, you don't need to play the
>physics envy game. No one does.
I agree we do not have to play the physics envy game. Physicists do not, and are ready to be much more dialectical in their models than many in the human life studies.
Chris Burford
London.