[FRIAM] Kudos to the social scientists

[Marcus G. Daniels]

Glen E. P. Ropella wrote:
> (*) Simulations are concrete objects and, hence, are fundamentally
> distinct from programs and full models, which are forms of rhetoric.  A
> simulation is not a model in and of itself.  
The simulation (the concrete thing that is apparently detached from 
human rhetoric) can serve as a dazzling bluff to say that model 
assumptions have been scrutinized when they may not have been.    It's 
potentially a deeper sort of deception or delusion.  I'm not saying 
there is a technical or conceptual problem here with ABM, just that it 
is a technique that is perhaps more obvious how to abuse than others.

Marcus