[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.