Paradigm-Level Issues in M&S

Historical Lessons and Current Challenges

Paul K. Davis

ResearchPublished Feb 4, 2011

The paper discusses alternative ways to think about the modeling endeavor; the importance of including qualitative factors (i.e., "soft factors") despite critics who think that doing so reduces rigor; the fundamental necessity of worrying seriously about uncertainty from the outset, including the kinds of uncertainty present in complex adaptive systems; and about implications for design of models. The paper's admonitions would be straightforward except that they fly in the face of common organizational practice, which is to avoid soft factors, ignore uncertainty by obsessing on standard cases, and use models ill-designed for serious uncertainty analysis.

Posted with permission from I/ITSEC Fellows Series at I/ITSEC 2010, November 30, 2010, Orlando Florida. I/ITSEC is the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC). The paper was presented as the author was honored as an Inaugural I/ITSEC Fellow.

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Document Details

  • Copyright: Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Eductation Conference (I/ITSEC)
  • Availability: Web-Only
  • Year: 2010
  • Pages: 10
  • Document Number: RP-1422

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Originally presented as part of the inaugural I/ITSEC Fellows Series at I/ITSEC 2010 on November 30, 2010 in Orlando Florida.

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