How Models Fail
A Critical Look at the History of Computer Simulations of the Evolution of Cooperation
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4 Bad excuses for bad methods and why they are wrong
While the narratives discussed so far could be traced to their specific
sources in the papers and books in which they appear, the following
standard arguments for the supposed superiority of the simulation approach
to studying the “evolution of cooperation” or for the use
of formal models crop up in discussions and the less formal forms of
scientific communication, but not so often in scientific papers. I
have heard all of these arguments in discussions about the RPD simulation
model more than once, but I cannot easily trace them back to printed
sources. As I explained in the introduction, these arguments seem to
me none the less to represent an attitude that effects the scientific
work. Therefore, I believe that they deserve discussion.
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