An Example from Social Sciences

• The Challenge: Explaining the “Live and Let Live” Cooperation that emerged on some stretches of the front line during World War I.

• Ashworth's traditional approach: Explanation through a thick historical narrative.

• Axelrod's new approach: Based on Ashworth's narrative as well as on computer simulations of the “evolution of cooperation”

• Question: Does the simulation based approach add anything in terms of explanatory power?