Prologue event

Is it possible to approach problems such as poverty with models? What if the challenge is not only finding a solution, but also finding one in a limited time? In this event prior to the closed Modeling Wicked Problems seminar, Paul Edwards tackles the pitfalls of mind and computer models. What happens if the potential problem-solvers are in fact the problem-makers?

Résumé event

Event following the closed Modeling Wicked Problems seminar, lead by Thilo Wiertz.

About the following contributions

The contributions collected here start with two reflective texts: one by Paul Edwards on the relationship between wicked problems and mental models—which all too often fail us; and the other by Miriam Diamond on systems thinking, an attempt to gather together all aspects of a problem, and then to explore key drivers in the system in order to create nonlinear and nonintuitive results.

The first case study, summarized by Pablo Jensen, used the Schelling segregation model, and shows how individuals who each genuinely desire to live in a racially mixed neighborhood can nevertheless collectively, against their best intentions, produce a segregated town as they each seek optimal housing for themselves. Isabell Schrickel, in a second case study, introduces Crawford S. Holling’s concept of adaptive modeling, through which models are understood as tools of self-instruction and collective learning about complex systems and their possible future trajectories. In “Limits to Growth,” Miriam Diamond picks up this most famous publication of 1972 that alerted the world to the likelihood of collapse in both human and natural systems. The final major exercise, introduced by Chris Strashok, allowed students to use the Global Systems Simulator, a sophisticated integrated assessment model, to explore avenues toward achieving sustainability by manipulating a wide range of factors, from population and production to agriculture and pollution. But how far does one such tool lead?