Dear Terry,
While human beings often have “a limited range of responses that they apply in a very routine fashion,” this does not mean that “humans behave very predictably.”
If it were as easy to predict human behavior as you suggest, we’d be living in a very different world. Things would run well in our big cities and our financial markets would all work effectively. Iterative gaming simulations would have brought the predictable victories that commanders expected in the uncontrollable wars of the past half-century. We would have long ago eradicated some of the easily managed health problems that arise from problems that are in principle easy to control through such simple techniques as hand washing and teaching patients to take their full prescription treatment rather than stopping when symptoms decrease.
But human beings don’t behave as we predict they will. Not even when their own lives may depend on it, as they do when patients take prescriptions.
The reason I find these kinds of posts so problematic is that you are not merely playing devil’s advocate. You are arguing too strong a position with too little evidence.
Simulations exist. Algorithms have value. Design theory can do better.
But not with overconfident kind of reliance you propose on computing power.
I’d be curious to see a well-substantiated argument that based on more than reasoning. You’re claiming this works. That requires evidence and a well-structured argument.
In another thread, I pointed to Bill Starbuck’s (2009) article, “The constant causes of never-ending faddishness in the behavioral and social sciences.” One of the issues to which Starbuck points is that the behavioral and social sciences do not work as physics and engineering do. You are an engineer making a claim about predictability in human behavior. The claim of algorithmic predictability is among the recurring fads in behavioral and social science that have not yet proven feasible.
In part, I agree with you, but there are significant nuances to what we can predict, how we can do so, and how we can make our predictions useful. In a sense, this kind of predictability across a range of potential behavioral options is the basis of design affordances. In a larger theoretical sense, however, you are claiming far too much. A more nuanced and careful argument would make this a far more useful argument. The devil is in the details.
For those who wish to read Starbuck’s article, I have posted it on my Academia.edu site. It will remain there until September 20 under Teaching Documents. It is at URL:
http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman
Yours,
Ken
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Mobile +61 404 830 462 | Home Page http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design/people/Professor-Ken-Friedman-ID22.html<http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design> Academia Page http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman About Me Page http://about.me/ken_friedman
Guest Professor | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China
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Starbuck, William H. 2009. “The constant causes of never-ending faddishness in the behavioral and social sciences.” Scandinavian Journal of Management. Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 108-116.
doi:10.1016/j.scaman.2008.11.005
Available through September 20 under Teaching Documents at this URL:
http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman
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Terry Love wrote:
—snip—
The reality is that humans behave very predictably, and have a limited range of responses that they apply in a very routine fashion.
—snip—
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