IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jas/jasssj/2005-63-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Towards Good Social Science

Author

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Scott Moss & Bruce Edmonds, 2005. "Towards Good Social Science," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 8(4), pages 1-13.
    • Handle: RePEc:jas:jasssj:2005-63-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.jasss.org/8/4/13/13.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hansen, Lars Peter, 1982. "Large Sample Properties of Generalized Method of Moments Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 1029-1054, July.
    2. Bollerslev, Tim, 2001. "Financial econometrics: Past developments and future challenges," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 41-51, January.
    3. Bollerslev, Tim, 1986. "Generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 307-327, April.
    4. Olivier Barreteau & François Bousquet & Jean-Marie Attonaty, 2001. "Role-Playing Games for Opening the Black Box of Multi-Agent Systems: Method and Lessons of Its Application to Senegal River Valley Irrigated Systems," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 4(2), pages 1-5.
    5. Federico Etro, 2004. "Innovation by leaders," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(495), pages 281-303, April.
    6. Engle, Robert F, 1982. "Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity with Estimates of the Variance of United Kingdom Inflation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 987-1007, July.
    7. Richard Blundell & Rachel Griffith & John van Reenen, 1999. "Market Share, Market Value and Innovation in a Panel of British Manufacturing Firms," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 66(3), pages 529-554.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Breukers, Yorick & de Reuver, Mark & Oey, Michel & Bouwman, Harry, 2015. "Mobile data offloading: an agent-based modelling study on the effectiveness of Wi-Fi offloading," 26th European Regional ITS Conference, Madrid 2015 127129, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    2. Shah Jamal Alam & Ruth Meyer & Gina Ziervogel & Scott Moss, 2007. "The Impact of HIV/AIDS in the Context of Socioeconomic Stressors: an Evidence-Driven Approach," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 10(4), pages 1-7.
    3. J. Gareth Polhill & Edoardo Pignotti & Nicholas M. Gotts & Pete Edwards & Alun Preece, 2007. "A Semantic Grid Service for Experimentation with an Agent-Based Model of Land-Use Change," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 10(2), pages 1-2.
    4. Masanori Hirano & Kiyoshi Izumi & Takashi Shimada & Hiroyasu Matsushima & Hiroki Sakaji, 2020. "Impact Analysis of Financial Regulation on Multi-Asset Markets Using Artificial Market Simulations," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-20, April.
    5. Pawel Sobkowicz, 2009. "Modelling Opinion Formation with Physics Tools: Call for Closer Link with Reality," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 12(1), pages 1-11.
    6. Troost, Christian & Huber, Robert & Bell, Andrew R. & van Delden, Hedwig & Filatova, Tatiana & Le, Quang Bao & Lippe, Melvin & Niamir, Leila & Polhill, J. Gareth & Sun, Zhanli & Berger, Thomas, 2023. "How to keep it adequate: A protocol for ensuring validity in agent-based simulation," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 159, pages 1-21.
    7. Thomas Brenner & Claudia Werker, 2007. "A Taxonomy of Inference in Simulation Models," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 30(3), pages 227-244, October.
    8. Barnaud, Cécile & Bousquet, François & Trebuil, Guy, 2008. "Multi-agent simulations to explore rules for rural credit in a highland farming community of Northern Thailand," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(4), pages 615-627, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Burton, Diana M. & Love, H. Alan, 1996. "A Review of Alternative Expectations Regimes in Commodity Markets: Specification, Estimation, and Hypothesis Testing Using Structural Models," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(2), pages 213-231, October.
    2. Mailand, Wilhelm, 1998. "Zum Einfluß von Unsicherheit auf die gesamtwirtschaftliche Investitionstätigkeit," HWWA Discussion Papers 57, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWA).
    3. Geweke, J. & Joel Horowitz & Pesaran, M.H., 2006. "Econometrics: A Bird’s Eye View," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0655, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    4. Szakmary, Andrew & Ors, Evren & Kyoung Kim, Jin & Davidson, Wallace III, 2003. "The predictive power of implied volatility: Evidence from 35 futures markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(11), pages 2151-2175, November.
    5. Amilon, Henrik, 2008. "Estimation of an adaptive stock market model with heterogeneous agents," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 342-362, March.
    6. Adrian C. Darnell, 1994. "A Dictionary Of Econometrics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 118.
    7. Yacine AÏT‐SAHALI & Michael W. Brandt, 2001. "Variable Selection for Portfolio Choice," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1297-1351, August.
    8. Mailand, Wilhelm, 1998. "Zum Einfluss von Unsicherheit auf die gesamtwirtschaftliche Investitionstatigkeit," Discussion Paper Series 26305, Hamburg Institute of International Economics.
    9. Christian Bontemps & Nour Meddahi, 2012. "Testing distributional assumptions: A GMM aproach," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(6), pages 978-1012, September.
    10. Meddahi, Nour & Renault, Eric, 2004. "Temporal aggregation of volatility models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 119(2), pages 355-379, April.
    11. Andersen, Torben G. & Lund, Jesper, 1997. "Estimating continuous-time stochastic volatility models of the short-term interest rate," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 343-377, April.
    12. Lorenzo Pozzi, 2011. "The Time-Varying Volatility of Earnings and Aggregate Precautionary Savings," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 11-144/2, Tinbergen Institute.
    13. N. Balakrishna & Bovas Abraham & Ranjini Sivakumar, 2006. "Gamma stochastic volatility models," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(3), pages 153-171.
    14. Dominique Guegan & Bertrand K. Hassani, 2019. "Risk Measurement," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-02119256, HAL.
    15. Dominguez, Kathryn M., 1998. "Central bank intervention and exchange rate volatility1," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 161-190, February.
    16. Jonathan Chassot & Michael Creel, 2023. "Constructing Efficient Simulated Moments Using Temporal Convolutional Networks," Working Papers 1412, Barcelona School of Economics.
    17. Christoffersen, Peter & Hahn, Jinyong & Inoue, Atsushi, 2001. "Testing and comparing Value-at-Risk measures," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 325-342, July.
    18. Kotchoni, Rachidi, 2012. "Applications of the characteristic function-based continuum GMM in finance," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 56(11), pages 3599-3622.
    19. Aatola, Piia, 2013. "Putting a Price on Carbon – Econometric Essays on the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme and its Impacts," Research Reports P62, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    20. Entrop, Oliver & Fischer, Georg, 2019. "Hedging costs and joint determinants of premiums and spreads in structured financial products," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Betriebswirtschaftliche Reihe B-34-19, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jas:jasssj:2005-63-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Francesco Renzini (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.