A simulation model that represents belief change within a population of agents who are connected by a social network is presented based on Thagard's theory of explanatory coherence. In this model there are a fixed number of represented beliefs, each of which are either held or not by each agent....

Science is the result of a substantially social process. That is, science relies on many inter-personal processes, including: selection and communication of research findings, discussion of method, checking and judgement of others' research, development of norms of scientific behaviour,...

Most traditional strategies of assessing the fit between a simulation's set of predictions (outputs) and a set of relevant observations rely either on visual inspection or squared distances among averages. Here we introduce an alternative goodness-of-fit strategy, Ordinal Pattern Analysis (OPA)...

We consider here issues of open access to social simulations, with a particular focus on software licences, though also briefly discussing documentation and archiving. Without any specific software licence, the default arrangements are stipulated by the Berne Convention (for those countries...

A published simulation model (Riolo et al. 2001) was replicated in two independent implementations so that the results as well as the conceptual design align. This double replication allowed the original to be analysed and critiqued with confidence. In this case, the replication revealed some...

Brian Arthur's `El Farol Bar' model is extended so that the agents also learn and communicate. The learning and communication is implemented using an evolutionary process acting upon a population of mental models inside each agent. The evolutionary process is based on a Genetic Programming...

It is argued that, due to the complexity of most economic phenomena, the chances of deriving correct models from a priori principles are very small. Instead, a more descriptive approach to modelling should be pursued. Agent-based modelling is characterised as a step in this direction. However...

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...

The objectives of this paper are to define and classify different types of errors and artefacts that can appear in the process of developing an agent-based model, and to propose activities aimed at avoiding them during the model construction and testing phases. To do this in a structured way, we...