Simulation as Resilient Job according to NY Times

I just came across an article from the New York Times entitled “In Simulation Work, the Demand is Real“.  The article is from a feature about emerging job markets, and basically implies that there is a good demand for jobs in simulation.  Great!

In general, the article is fairly innocuous but it leads one to believe that the interesting areas of simulation are about modeling more and more complex systems  (for example, it quotes a scientist at AEgis Technologies as saying “we solved most of the problems that one person can do a long time ago”).  I think it perpetuates the myth that simulation advances and benefits only are interesting for high-end, complex systems.  I really believe that simulation of more mundane processes and equipment has a huge potential impact that is not being realized or accomplished today, because simulation is often assumed to be complex and expensive.

Furthermore, the article suggests that the validity of the science behind simulation is almost a given, it’s just computing power which is lagging.  Again, a big simplification.  All models have assumptions.  I have seen firsthand how simulation developers will try to stick models together without understanding that the assumptions underlying the models may be inconsistent.

I don’t want to be too critical because I understand the article is about high-end simulation, but I would have liked to see a nod to more mainstream applications of simulation.