- Email: [email protected]
Dear model builder
158
Comment
Dear model builder Thank you for sending us your article, based on your computer simulation model. We do indeed publish articles of this kind, and welcome them. However, while we are considering yours, you might care to consider whether you wish to be drawn on these questions: Which came first: your desire to build a model, or your interest in the subject that you modelled? What proportion of your research time and budget was spent on such problems as sorting out the program and getting it to run properly, as distinct from collecting data or testing it against hypotheses? Why do you believe that “modelling forced the researchers to think more systematically about the problems than other approaches would have done”? For instance, did you really consider in turn each of the possible interrelationships between your variables, and only accept those that objective data (quantitative or qualitative) would support? Or do I misunderstand your use of the word ‘systematic’? Models may indeed require many assumptions to be made explicit and thus, as you say, assist others in critically evaluating your work and conclusions. But how many critics do you expect to run and analyse your model? Indeed, given your point that social scientists may be scared off by considerably mathematical approaches, how many potential critics are you deterring by going for a model? There are cases where researchers have run models created by others, and have reached quite different conclusions; can I assume that your own model would not come into this category? I guess all authors have some faith in their research methods and conclusions (or else they would not be writing articles), but it is not clear to me how much of your faith is based on your own self-confidence (quite reasonably, no doubt), and how much on appeals to the superior nature of model-building. These questions could be construed as unduly antagonistic towards the efforts of model builders. That would be unfortunate because, first, no method is devoid of defects and, second, we have no desire to deter authors from submitting articles based on such models. I look forward to publishing yours in Futures.
FUTURES June 1981
Comment
Dear model builder Thank you for sending us your article, based on your computer simulation model. We do indeed publish articles of this kind, and welcome them. However, while we are considering yours, you might care to consider whether you wish to be drawn on these questions: Which came first: your desire to build a model, or your interest in the subject that you modelled? What proportion of your research time and budget was spent on such problems as sorting out the program and getting it to run properly, as distinct from collecting data or testing it against hypotheses? Why do you believe that “modelling forced the researchers to think more systematically about the problems than other approaches would have done”? For instance, did you really consider in turn each of the possible interrelationships between your variables, and only accept those that objective data (quantitative or qualitative) would support? Or do I misunderstand your use of the word ‘systematic’? Models may indeed require many assumptions to be made explicit and thus, as you say, assist others in critically evaluating your work and conclusions. But how many critics do you expect to run and analyse your model? Indeed, given your point that social scientists may be scared off by considerably mathematical approaches, how many potential critics are you deterring by going for a model? There are cases where researchers have run models created by others, and have reached quite different conclusions; can I assume that your own model would not come into this category? I guess all authors have some faith in their research methods and conclusions (or else they would not be writing articles), but it is not clear to me how much of your faith is based on your own self-confidence (quite reasonably, no doubt), and how much on appeals to the superior nature of model-building. These questions could be construed as unduly antagonistic towards the efforts of model builders. That would be unfortunate because, first, no method is devoid of defects and, second, we have no desire to deter authors from submitting articles based on such models. I look forward to publishing yours in Futures.
FUTURES June 1981