[G]eneralism requires some degree of comparative thinking, otherwise it’s nothing more than brute-force universalism. That’s my problem with alleged generalists like Jared Diamond or E.O. Wilson, for example: they assert a universal that allows them to simply steamroll all variation and heterogeneity. A good generalist is aware of very different kinds of claims about knowledge in different areas of study and does not insist on subordinating those differences to some universal theory or argument. . .

[T]he only sin the generalist can commit is assuming that a generalist understanding can do more than it ought, that it trumps the specialist on questions that reside with specialization. Which, unfortunately, is a sin that a lot of generalists commit. The generalist is built to communicate and translate from a specialization to a wider public, and to translate back to specialists the question, “So what?” Not to tell the specialist that his undersanding of social formations in late 17th Century North Wales isn’t supported by the archival evidence.

This is from Tim Burke's comments in a discussion of a transcript of a talk he gave to a group of research librarians. Read that essay for more on the problems of libraries and his views on how they can be addressed.

I have another use for these ideas since they speak to a larger problem that has nettled me for a long time. They apply, in a sense, to the conflict between micro and macro, between short term and long term, as well as between the particular and the general. Much of my doubt and critcism of environmentalists, economists and politicians stems from their confusions about these differences. In Timothy's terms I am speaking as a generalist saying “So what?” to specialists.

Brad Allenby's recent column deals with the conflict between micro and macro, short term and long term.

For those interested in environmental modeling, Chris Freeman's and Francisco Louca's book, "As Time Goes By: From the Industrial Revolutions to the Information Revolution," is both relevant and challenging.

It discusses an important dialog in economics that has gone on for almost a century regarding models, mathematical formalisms, technique, and historical contingency. Questions arise because a number of economists, of whom perhaps Nikolai Kondratiev and Joseph Schumpeter are best known, grew fascinated with the "long waves" - patterns of change in economic, social and management systems underpinned by transitions between technology clusters of 40 or 50 years duration - that appear to characterize economic history.

Attempts to define, and explain, such waves using mathematical formalisms have generally proved ineffectual, in part because each era may be characterized in terms of a technology constellation, but the specifics of different technology systems, and associated managerial, institutional, financial, social and cultural changes, tend to be historically contingent. The system is neither recurrent, nor stochastic, but an evolving combination of both that can be understood only through historical analysis. . .

{D}ifferentiating between reoccurring and idiosyncratic phenomenon, the essence of generalization and thus modeling, depends on being able to differentiate between that which is stable, including those dynamics that are predictable and repetitive, and that which is unstable.

Or, as Timothy might say, the sin of the modeler is the sin of the generalist: "assuming that a generalist understanding can do more than it ought, that it trumps the specialist on questions that reside with specialization". But it's even worse than that since the realities of human socio-economic and socio-ecological systems are neither recurrent nor stochastic. They are not deterministic and we can't even make good guesses except for immediate things. We can be pretty confident of our predictions for tomorrow, or next week, but not for the next decade.

A good deal of the heat in my posts is a consequence of my disbelief that these are novel insights for those who claim any sort of expertise. Are they that ignorant? Are the old jokes about the brilliant physicist, mathematician or social scientist true, that they have deep knowledge of their speciality but haven't the wit to cross the street unaided? It seems more likely to me that they knowingly foist their ideas onto a gullible public for instrumental reasons.

Reflecting both ignorance of how technological change occurs, and the need for tractable mathematics in complicated models, innovation is usually modeled as an exogenous factor that integrates smoothly and homogeneously into scenarios - the IPCC curves are a good example.

But, as the long waves themselves indicate, fundamental technological innovation is inherently contingent, disruptive, and chunky, and always co-evolves with equally fundamental institutional, social, financial, and cultural change.

Examples from economic history are legion. For example, the automobile mass consumption culture required the development of personal financing structures and the rise of a middle class that could afford mass consumption. The railroad required co-extensive communications networks, development of new forms of management and financial engineering, and even stabilization of time across national and international regions. The information revolution creates firms that look like networks, not hierarchies.

We can't know what future technological disruptions may look like. We do know that extension of smooth trend lines, such as in the Limits to Growth or Population Bomb treatments, is always wrong.

I know that. You know that. We all know that. Don't we? When we hear politicians, such as Stern in the UK, advocating devastating changes to current policies to achieve objectives a century or two from now we should laugh out loud. What is this fellow smoking? That's just silly! A century ago we were worried about drowning in horse shit, never dreaming that we would be worried about climate change induced by colorless, odorless, non-toxic gasses. A century and a half ago the world's fifth largest industry was whale oil extraction and distribution! We hauled ourselves and our goods about with beasts of burden and lit the night with whale fat! We went to war on horseback!

This is even more the case as explosive and accelerating technological evolution across foundational technology systems - nanotechnology, biotechnology, robotics, information and communication technologies, and cognitive science - makes even that which we could previously assume to be stable contingent over much shorter time frames.

The stability of assumptions also reflects the time frames over which models are presumed to be valid. Over the short term, assumptions of linearity and stability of institutional and cultural structures holds.

Over the longer term, however, human history is highly contingent and unpredictable, and explanation of discontinuous changes in economic structure based on quantification and explicit models fail. Thus, econometric models that are undeniably powerful in short-term microeconomic conditions fare poorly over the decadal time frames of long wave phenomenon.

This time creep is also characteristic of environmental and climate change modeling: the general circulation models of climate change have some explanatory power regarding the physical processes behind climate change, and may be accurate so long as relatively stable technological, institutional and social bases can be assumed.

When such models are extended into social and cultural realms over periods of centuries, however, the basic assumption of institutional, technological, social and cultural stability becomes invalid. It is not that the models are "wrong," it is that they are being mistakenly applied beyond the boundary of their validity.

Not even wrong.

[C]limate policy is almost entirely about you and me making sacrifices for the benefit of future generations. To contribute usefully to the debate, you've got to think hard about the appropriate level of sacrifice. . .

The most thoughtful assessment of climate change is the Stern Review, prepared in October 2006 at the behest of the British government. The Stern Review reaches conclusions generally compatible with Al Gore's worldview, but only after laying out the underlying assumptions so clearly that skeptics like me can tinker around with them and see how the conclusions change. In other words, they've taken a hot-button issue and reduced it to its constituent pieces so that opposing parties can stop yelling at each other and say, "Let us calculate." That's what I call a contribution to world peace. I wish the Nobel Committee had agreed.

Tinkering with economic models that are being mistakenly applied beyond the boundary of their validity is Nobel worthy? Whatever.

If you truly want to think hard then bone up on long waves and the history of technology clusters.