3: Simulation Research and Applications with F. LeRon Shults

In this episode of the Podcast, I am interviewing Dr. F. LeRon Shults. Dr. Shults is Professor at the Institute for Global Development and Social Planning at the University of Agder, and he is the Scientific Director of the Center for Modeling Social Systems at NORCE in Kristiansand, Norway.

In this interview, I talk to Dr. Shults about the discipline of computer simulation and modeling. We go over the misconceptions around simulation and how practitioners go about building simulations in the first place. While these new kinds of tools are no doubt powerful, there may also be new problems that arise with it. The key question for this episode is this: are there dangers to understanding a complex process? How and why could that be the case?

LeRon has a new book, available for download through Brill Academic Open Publishing, called, Practicing Safe Sects: Religious Reproduction in Scientific and Philosophical Perspective.

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