Murray Gell-Mann, a founder of the SFI makes some claims in his book The Quark and the Jaguar . This is one of several swipes at math. The problem is disposed of and we move onward. It's silly to suggest this will happen to trade balances, mental health, viruses, etc. The world also contains many extrememly complicated patterns.
Simple rules underlie many extrememly complicated phenomena in the world.
With the help of powerful computers, scientists can root those rules out. Such layers are the subject of complexologists. But the general success of scientific models demonstrates that important systems lie within the scope. This syllogism was refuted in a brilliant paper published in Science last year. After all, many phenomena can be described by a Gaussian or bell curve.