Future of system dynamics and the SD Review

[jforestr@MIT.EDU (Jay W. Forrest]

I very much agree with the March 24 communication from George
Richardson:
Re: SDR Reformatting, Comment#3.

The future of system dynamics rests on high quality work that serves a
useful, practical purpose. Dangers lie in proliferation of models that
are trivial, and in modeling that addresses only academic audiences and
not the important concerns of society.

Acceptance and growth of system dynamics is probably developing as
rapidly as we have a right to expect for a field that represents a
paradigm that conflicts with many others that are long established in
academia, business, and politics.

More important than any benefit that can come from reformatting the
Review would be to have more books aimed at the public that use sound,
rather simple, and powerful models to shed light on the great
controversies of the day--rising government debt, welfare, population
growth, retirement programs, increasing overhead in society, balance of
trade, drug addition, and financial stability. These must not be the
kind of presentations that are designed to support a prior political
ideology, but rather they should show how the present problems arose,
and what are the short-term versus long-term tradeoffs in the future.

Jay W. Forrester
Germeshausen Professor Emeritus and Senior Lecturer
Room E60-389
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
tel: 617-253-1571
email: jforestr@mit.edu