16 Aug Paper with Patrick Forber on when it’s ok to tweak simulations

Anyone who has written a simulation (or any kind of model) knows that the first attempt never works. Models are built iteratively — you build the model, run it, see what happens, then tweak the model, run it, tweak the model, run it, etc. Is this kosher? My colleague Patrick Forber and I argue that it is, sometimes. This paper is related to an earlier one, Agent-Based Modeling and the Fallacies of Individualism.

The Perils of Tweaking: How to use Macrodata to Set Parameters in Complex Simulation Models, with Patrick Forber, Synthese (2012) doi: 10.1007/s11229-012-0142-7.