Shane Parrish (Farnam Streen Blog) wrote an excellent essay on the butterfly effect and how it impacts science, economy, and business. Why it is important – in chaotic systems like the weather and the economy, small changes in initial conditions can have enormous impacts on outcomes, and we can’t know which ones ahead of time. At the same time, our belief in our increasing knowledge, computing power and technology causes us to rely more on models. What important decisions are we making based on models subject to the butterfly effect? Are we adequately considering what may happen when the models are wrong (not a little wrong, but a lot wrong)?