期刊名称：Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation
印刷版ISSN：1460-7425
出版年度：2005
卷号：8
期号：4
页码：1-15
出版社：University of Surrey, Department of Sociology
摘要：The paper investigates what is meant by "good science" and "bad science" and how these differ as between the natural (physical and biological) sciences on the one hand and social sciences on the other. We conclude on the basis of historical evidence that the natural science are much more heavily constrained by evidence and observation than by theory while the social sciences are constrained by prior theory and hardly at all by direct evidence. Current examples of the latter proposition are taken from recent issues of leading social science journals. We argue that agent based social simulations can be used as a tool to constrain the development of a new social science by direct (what economists dismiss as anecdotal) evidence and that to do so would make social science relevant to the understanding and influencing of social processes. We argue that such a development is both possible and desirable. We do not argue that it is likely.
关键词：Methodology; Agent Based Social Simulation; Qualitative Analysis; Evidence; Conditions of Application; History of Science
