Hi, Terry,
Your response to my note states that the model you offered without explanation – cliodynamics – isn’t really applicable. Now you’re saying that another model – systems dynamics – is what we need.
You’ve also stated that a significant number of people in one group alone, the subscribers to the list, has the mathematical and conceptual skills to apply cliodynamics to design and design history. The list has just over 2,200 subscribers – if 25% of this population could do cliodynamics, that would be 550 people. I disagree withboth claims.
The systems dynamics approach works for some kinds of engineering problems and logistical problems. In the Dhaka urban waste case, the authors have massive and carefully mapped data to model a difficult but reasonably tractable engineering problem. The paper on the Anglo-Irish War of 1916-1921 is entirely different. It is neither a true case study nor a model of retrodiction. It is a purely conceptual simulation where the data is unreliable or missing entirely. This is especially puzzling given the fact that there are rich sources of data on the Anglo-Irish War with comprehensive statistics on all the issues the author attempts to model. Instead, the author bases the entire empirical data in his paper on information taken from two books on the war, neither of which offers rich enough data to model the time series or flow that the figures purport to represent.
To me, this paper is “what-if” history –What if Nelson had not divided his fleet at Trafalgar? What if Stonewall Jackson had lived to fight at Gettysburg?
Systems dynamics modelling seems to make reasonable sense as one way to grapple with some kinds of design problems. That’s not where this thread began. This thread began with your challenge to design historians to adopt a new form of conceptual but empirically-based historical research in an effort to improve the value of design history to the discipline of design.
The examples you offer show little likelihood of improving the value of design history.
As to whether 25% of the subscribers to PhD-Design have the mathematical skills and training to do clio-dynamic research, I have a hunch and a challenge. My hunch is that fewer than 25% of the subscribers to this list are fully trained historians. A greater number has some training in ancillary fields required for cliodynamics, fields such aseconomics, logistics, biology, psychology, or sociology, but few among these can practice these disciplines professionally.
The statistical and mathematical skills required for cliodynamics are not trivial. Several psychologists and one mathematical physicist with some of the skills have spoken with me at different times to offer gloomy assessments of the methodological skills they observe in our field with relation to statistical inference, causal studies, and the like. (Remember Don Norman’s article on design education?) These people have been reviewing journal articles, conference papers, and doctoral theses. Our field is short on these skills,partly because designers do not need them to design. But our field is also short on these skills because designers who move into research rarely seem to develop the broad skill set required for methodological triangulation across qualitative, quantitative, and generative methods.
To do cliodynamics, one requires three sets of skills, each at an advanced level: historical research methods, methods in ancillary social or natural sciences, and advanced statistical and mathematical skills. Fewer than 25% of the list has deep training in historical methods, a greater number have some of the ancillaryskills but not at the advanced level, and a tiny fraction has the kind of advanced statistical and mathematical training one would need to qualify at the PhD level in the natural or quantitative social sciences. Since cliodynamics requires all three, one does not need advanced statistics to suggest it is incorrect to assert that 25% of the list subscribers could engage in cliodynamics.
All of this gets down to a set of issues that you still have not addressed. What is the purpose of design history?
That’s where the thread began. It started with your challenge to the value of design history to thedesign field as professional design historians practice it today.
I’m going to restate my position on this: For most designers and researchers in design, history helps us to understand the past. We use history to develop a repertoire of useful, situated examples. History helps us to form a basis for ethical decisions based on what we know of others have done – their past actions and the consequences of their deeds. History shapes a conversation across generations. Yet again, I’m also going to say you’ve neglected this issues that Victor Margolin, Kari Kuuti, Don Norman and Derek Miller raised.
Is there some other purpose to history that would suggest that skilled, highly trained historians ought to get cross-training in mathematics and statistics, systems theory or engineering? I can see that some people serve the field well through cross-training in historical, technical, and scientific disciplines. Henry Petroski’s work certainly benefits from a multiplicity of backgrounds, as does the work of Louis Bucciarelli and several others.
You haven’t offered actual cases. You’ve pointed to other fields while suggesting that the entire field of design history is missing something.
What you’ve shown is that systems dynamics is a good way to analyse engineering problems, and that cliodynamics has less value than you earlier suggested.
Yours,
Ken
Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Dean, Faculty ofDesign | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Ph: +61 3 9214 6078 | Faculty www.swinburne.edu.au/design<http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design>
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