Social Science Simulation — Origins, Prospects, Purposes

This paper is about some history and some future development of computer simulation (Ostrom’s Third Symbol System) in the social sciences, as opposed to mathematical modelling (Ostrom’s Second Symbol System). Statistical modelling is mainstream, but it so often forgets about the process character of social life, whereas simulation often forgets about data. Concept driven simulation is defended, but data driven simulation is also pleaded for, taking into account that understanding a social process must precede its prediction.

[1]  Friedrich A. von Hayek,et al.  Scientism and the Study of Society , 1942 .

[2]  A. Bernstein,et al.  A COMPUTER SIMULATION MODEL OF COMMUNITY REFERENDUM CONTROVERSIES , 1963 .

[3]  Hayward R. Alker.  Computer Simulations: Inelegant Mathematics and Worse Social Science?. , 1974 .

[4]  Bibb Latané,et al.  Dynamic Social Impact , 1996 .

[5]  F. Albrecht,et al.  The dynamics of two interacting populations , 1974 .

[6]  Klaus G. Troitzsch,et al.  Social Science Microsimulation , 1997 .

[7]  R. Abelson,et al.  Computer Simulation of Individual Belief Systems1 , 1965 .

[8]  J. Casti.  Would-Be Worlds: How Simulation Is Changing the Frontiers of Science , 1996 .

[9]  Joachim Merz,et al.  Microanalytic simulation models to support social and financial policy , 1986 .

[10]  Richard A. Davis,et al.  Time Series: Theory and Methods , 2013 .

[11]  John M. Gottman,et al.  Time Series Analysis: A Comprehensive Introduction for Social Scientists. , 1983 .

[12]  Bernard P. Zeigler,et al.  Theory of Modelling and Simulation , 1979, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics.

[13]  N. Gilbert,et al.  Artificial Societies: The Computer Simulation of Social Life , 1995 .

[14]  Klaus G. Troitzsch,et al.  Modelling and simulation in the social sciences from the philosophy of science point of view , 1996 .

[15]  W. Weidlich,et al.  Concepts and Models of a Quantitative Sociology , 1983 .

[16]  T. Ostrom.  Computer simulation: the third symbol system , 1988 .

[17]  J. Casti,et al.  Would-Be Worlds , 1996 .

[18]  M. Bunge.  Treatise on basic philosophy , 1974 .

[19]  Ithiel de Sola Pool,et al.  THE SIMULMATICS PROJECT , 1961 .

[20]  S. Fiske,et al.  The Handbook of Social Psychology , 1935 .

[21]  Stephen Wolfram,et al.  Universality and complexity in cellular automata , 1983 .

[22]  Nigel Gilbert,et al.  Simulating Societies : The Computer Simulation of Social Phenomena , 1995 .

[23]  James D. Hamilton.  Time Series Analysis , 1994 .

[24]  Rainer Hegselmann.  Cellular Automata in the Social Sciences , 1996 .

[25]  John Henize,et al.  Critical Issues in Evaluating Socio-Economic Models , 1984 .