Re: More Questions about analysing ABMs

[Paul E Johnson]

Darren Schreiber wrote:

> We compare the outputs with empirical data and also look for nonsensical
> results.  
I hate to say this comment really bothers me.  "Nonsensical" does not
help here, except in the sense that it might alert you to a bug in your
program.
  

If a model produces an unexpected result, especially if it does it only
occassionally, you may have found a plum, rather than nonsense.  Don't
forget that complexity has as a foundation the possibility that two
"arbitrarily close" points in the parameter space may lead, upon
iteration, to places that are arbitrarily far apart from one another.

-- 
Paul E. Johnson                       email: address@hidden
Dept. of Political Science            http://lark.cc.ukans.edu/~pauljohn
University of Kansas                  Office: (785) 864-9086
Lawrence, Kansas 66045                FAX: (785) 864-5700


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