[scottbot]

This is true, but not entirely relevant. Life-based complex systems often share a propensity for punctuated stability specifically due to their own nature, because of the same circularity inherent in evolution (those that can survive to replicate, do). In this case, systems whose parameters tend towards stabilization persist specifically because they tend towards stabilization. The least self-undermining regularities persist (attractors).

Societies formed and persisted because they were good at it, because they were a stable attractor in a larger system. We might not necessarily be able to formally describe the entire system, but our propensity towards stabilization (at the biological level, the human level, the societal level) means we can do clever things at the stability points, like develop medicines that work, design groceries which are more likely to sell certain products, and predict the outcomes of presidential elections.

Now, whether or not the explanation given for the systemic outcomes are "accurate" descriptions of the underlying mechanisms is in question here, and it's an important one, but it's not a lost cause. When Copernicus set the world in orbit, there was a big argument of whether he was providing an actual explanation of the way the world works, or just a convenient mathematical shorthand for making accurate predictions. It turned out that the most parsimonious shorthand was also (ahem) less wrong than earlier mechanistic theories. So too can historians find explanations that, if not accurate representations of underlying mechanisms, can still be explanations which fit better to systemic tendencies than earlier explanations.

Edit: Which is just saying that the blog author's point is still a useful one, whether or not we can ever achieve complete mechanical account of human activity.

[pron]

Well, this is what historians do -- try to provide a model of a certain society at a certain time. Yet, it is important to warn of scientism (I really like that word!) When we come up with more quantitative models (as economists do) would we be able to resist the urge to believe they are scientifically predictive?

And economics is a perfect example. It appears easily amenable to quantitative study, yet it does not yield very predictive models, does it (at least not nearly as predictive as we'd like)? And history is more complex than just economics.

Of course we can do clever things at those stable points, but defying math isn't one of them. Predicting presidential elections is a good example. We're not really (generally) able to do that (at least, not yet). The best we do is try to get a valid statistical picture, spot a trend, and extrapolate for very short durations.

[scottbot]

Pron, as a historian who has come up with quantitative models and resisted the urge to call them predictive, yes, I think that sort of restraint is within humanit(y|ie)'s capable grasp. =]

[pron]

I would love to see them. And I have great faith in historians' own abilities to resist that urge -- they are well trained at that; I am not so sure how others would fare.

Becoming a "quantitative historian" used to be a dream of mine (before I abandoned an academic career in either math or history). But then I realized that I enjoyed reading a transcript of a German witch trial no less than a Marc Bloch epic narrative, and found it to no less educational. :)