Richard Ned Lebow

“Counterfactuals can be considered an analog to the apple, and the invitation to engage with them a provocation to those who believe that social science or history can only be corrupted by their use. I sense that
the number of scholars who feel this way, while substantial, is on the decline.
They believe we live in a metaphorical Garden of Eden, where the social and physical worlds are ordered, predictable, and related in a holistic way. For those of us who recognize that humankind left Eden long
ago—if it ever existed—counterfactuals must be considered one more tool to help us make sense of our chaotic and unordered world, where knowledge sometimes has the effect of accelerating disorder.”
― Richard Ned Lebow, Forbidden Fruit: Counterfactuals and International Relations

“All forms of complex causation, and especially nonlinear transformations, admittedly stack the deck against prediction. Linear describes an outcome produced by one or more variables where the effect is additive. Any other interaction is nonlinear. This would include outcomes that involve step functions or phase transitions. The hard sciences routinely describe nonlinear phenomena. Making predictions about them becomes increasingly problematic when multiple variables are involved that have complex interactions. Some simple nonlinear systems can quickly become unpredictable when small variations in their inputs are introduced.23 As so much of the social world is nonlinear, fifty plus years of behavioral research and theory building have not led to any noticeable improvement in our ability to predict events. This is most evident in the case of transformative events like the social-political revolution of the 1960s, the end of the Cold War, and the rise and growing political influence of
fundamentalist religious groups.

Radical skepticism about prediction of any but the most short-term outcomes is fully warranted. This does not mean that we can throw our hands up in the face of uncertainty, contingency, and unpredictability. In a complex society, individuals, organizations, and states require a high degree of confidence—even if it is misplaced—in the short-term future and a reasonable degree of confidence about the longer term. In its absence they could not commit themselves to decisions, investments, and policies.

Like nudging the frame of a pinball machine to influence the path of the ball, we cope with the dilemma of uncertainty by doing what we can to make our expectations of the future self-fulfilling. We seek to control the social and physical worlds not only to make them more predictable but to reduce the likelihood of disruptive and damaging shocks (e.g., floods, epidemics, stock market crashes, foreign attacks). Our fallback strategy is denial.”
― Richard Ned Lebow, Forbidden Fruit: Counterfactuals and International Relations