Kudos on the Kuhn reference. you beat me to it :).
What i found troubling is the notion that creating a program that will simulate a system's behavior is enough. we can only judge how closely a program's performance matches behavior that has already occured. other than that, it's just another form of forecasting. even a model which simulates a system perfectly is prone to error. it even goes beyond simple forecasting models.
Imagine the year is 1970. the forum of Rome which is a group of academics, industry leaders and professionals want to know what the future holds. they come to the natural place to go - MIT SDG (System Dynamics Group) and ask for help, since they are unable to come up with reasonably reliable forecasts by themselves. MIT creates the World3 system dynamics model, which is impressive even today. the model crunches something like 120 variables and is able to produce past behavior of the world with incredible accuracy. it also predicts that within 20 years there will be no fossil fuel left. the result is an unlikely bestseller "the limit to growth". well, it was wrong.
ask me nicely and i will tell you who actually gave the correct future scenario...

well, at least you showed interest. good enough.
at about the same time as the world3 model (1970) there was this guy working for Royal Dutch shell named Mr.Wack. he came up with a new way of generating scenarios for possible futures by storytelling. in one of the stories he told the shell executives he described an oilpipe bursting in the persian gulf, causing a redction in production and a price increase, which will be maintained later by OPEC countries, which could thus pump less oil and make more money. the scenario (which the cumputer model could not have predicted) was troubling enough for the Shell executives, so they made plans accordingly, which put them at an edvantage once this actually happened in 1973.
amazing, isn't it?
now for some really bad shit.
in 1980, the guy now heading the scenario generating unit (now called Global Business Environments) came up with a story about a guy not even yet a mamber of the Pulitburo, Mikhail Gurbachov. (Gurbachov became the youngest Politburo member later that year!). in that story, Gurbachov was to lead a revolution in USSR, eventually leading to the dismantling of it. when this actually happened in 1989 the world was shocked, but Shell wondered why it took so long.
Point being, the mind is complex enough to foresee many things, but sometimes over analysis and bottom up approach is counterproductive.

the controlled and disciplined scenario generation method, as well as the formal education required are part of what turns this "witchcraft" into a science, or at least a practice worth considering. it is in fact taught in such places as Cornell, Leeds, and yes, even Bar Ilan :) look under "Future Studies".

regarding the method, i highly recommend a quick googling of future studies. it is vast and deep, so for lack of space i will just mention system dynamics, very formal education, delphi, as well as guided imagination and brianstorming.
about the number of scenarios generated, the GBE group in RDShell generates just three (3!) scenarios a year. that has got to put the Gurbachov scenario in a more impressive light.
Furthermore, RDS has a system in place dubbed TINA (There Is No Alternative) which guides them in their business and policy making process. in a nutshell, element that keep popping up in all scenarios and cannot be eliminated are "in your face" enough that they cannot be ignored when drafting a policy. Mr. Wack himself acknowledged the likely dilution of this method as more and more people start practicing it.