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1.3) A New Way Of Doing Science?


This way of developing a body of theory through a series of bottom-up models led some researchers (e.g. Langton 1987, Axelrod, 1997, Pfeifer et al., 2001) to postulate ABM as a new way of doing science between deductive and inductive reasoning.

In a workshop in 1987 Langton postulated the following paradigm changes for system modelling:

  • top-down to bottom-up modelling
  • global to local control
  • complex to simple specifications
  • predefined to emergent behaviour
  • individual to population simulations

This has changed the way ecological and social systems are modelled over the last couple of decades and made ABM a state-of-the-art method if agents are: autonomous (no central control) and heterogeneous, and their behaviour is reactive, pro-active or goal-directed, if they act bounded rational, if they perceive, interact, and communicate with their environment, and if they are mobile, and adapt or learn.