Humans are not rational. Any marketer can tell you this. It is possible (though not always easy) to manipulate humans to purchase goods that are healthy or unhealthy, needed or unneeded, intelligently designed or stupidly thrown together, taste good or taste bad, etc. ad nausea. Good marketing can sell anything: Frozen Pizza, Flavored Sugar Water, Boxes, Cigarettes, Software, Hardware, etc. Rationally, simulation science is better than the old way of doing strategy and anlysis. Yet, irrational humans will ignore this reality until their competitors put them out of business.

The fact we can market so much crap proves that economic theory regarding the ‘rationality of humans’ is nothing more than ivory tower thinking that fails miserably in the real world. It was good enough in the past to build competitive advantage, but using economics today that is uninformed of the realities of simulation science is bad business and may land executives in hot water if they continue to cling to what have become outdated and erroneous views of how the business world actually works.

Jargon and Ego appears to have limited the adoption of simulation science. I would venture to guess many experts in the simulation community has, at some time, aspired to be the next Newton or Galileo of the ‘non-linear’ world. Thus, fights and bickering over language and jargon developed and in doing so confused all of us simpleminded business people who just want to make more money for our firms and our families.

Ignorance is Bliss. Most businesspeople are too worried about making payroll to worry about learning a new approach to management unless they are 100% convinced that they HAVE TO LEARN IT TO SURVIVE.

DUMB IT DOWN. Scientists always like to use big words (jargon) because it makes them feel smart and it is more accurate. Yet, popularization relies on simplification. Very often, to simplify science is not an easy task. Some scientists think simplification inevitably means distortion of reality.

In their attempt to bring science to the public, popularisers constantly face the danger of distorting the ‘truth.’ Nevertheless, as good popularisers prove, it is possible to reach a balance between scientific rigour and journalistic interest. One of the keys to this balance is to simplify the issues to the point where the audience will understand, without oversimplifying them. Although some scientific subjects are easier to simplify than others, the capability of the populariser plays an important role in the process.