Sociology is full of chaotic systems, so slight deviations in the premises can have wide effects on the outcome of the system you are describing.<p>I would replace your cow analogy with a 2-pendulum analogy. Depending on the nuances of what is being observed, a small change in the inputs of your system can create dramatically different behaviors. It&#x27;s important to account for how you define your initial conditions and variables so that you don&#x27;t end up with a model that matches early in a simulation but ultimately diverges into something that looks nothing like what can be observed in the world.