Article ID: CBB001421043

Agent-Based Simulation and Sociological Understanding (2014)

unapi

Ylikoski, Petri (Author)


Perspectives on Science
Volume: 22, no. 3
Issue: 3
Pages: 318-335


Publication Date: 2014
Edition Details: First article in a special issue, “Simulation, Visualization, and Scientific Understanding”
Language: English

The article discusses agent-based simulation as a tool of sociological understanding. Based on an inferential account of understanding, it argues that computer simulations increase our explanatory understanding both by expanding our ability to make what-if inferences about social processes and by making these inferences more reliable. However, our ability to understand simulations limits our ability to understand real world phenomena through them. Thomas Schelling's checkerboard model of ethnic segregation is used to demonstrate the important role played by abstract how-possibly models in the process of building a mechanistic understanding of social phenomena.

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Description Contents:


Includes Series Articles

Article Parker, Wendy S. (2014) Simulation and Understanding in the Study of Weather and Climate. Perspectives on Science (pp. 336-356). unapi

Article Brown, James Robert (2014) Explaining, Seeing, and Understanding in Thought Experiments. Perspectives on Science (pp. 357-376). unapi

Article Regt, Henk W. de (2014) Visualization as a Tool for Understanding. Perspectives on Science (pp. 377-396). unapi

Article Leonelli, Sabina (2014) Data Interpretation in the Digital Age. Perspectives on Science (pp. 397-417). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001421043/

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Authors & Contributors
Mullaney, Thomas Shawn
Guy C. Fedorkow
Baker, Kevin T.
Turnbull, Thomas
Wiertz, Thilo
Banta, Joshua Alexander
Concepts
Models and modeling in science
Social sciences
Computer Simulation
Ethnicity
Sociology of knowledge
Science and race
Time Periods
20th century
21st century
19th century
20th century, late
18th century
Places
China
Yugoslavia
United States
Sweden
France
Australia
Institutions
Club of Rome
Instituto Oswaldo Cruz
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