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Understanding the Emergence of Population Behavior in Individual-Based Models

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Michael Weisberg
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Abstract

Proponents of individual-based modeling in ecology claim that their models explain the emergence of population-level behavior. This article argues that individual-based models have not, as yet, provided such explanations. Instead, individual-based models can and do demonstrate and explain the emergence of population-level behaviors from individual behaviors and interactions.

Type
Biological Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 81 , Issue 5 , December 2014 , pp. 785 - 797
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

Many thanks to Matt Bateman, Brett Calcott, Josh Epstein, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Steve Kimbrough, Arnon Levy, Ian Lustick, Emily Parke, Joan Roughgarden, Dmitri Tymoczko, and Bill Wimsatt for helpful discussions. This research was supported, in part, by National Science Foundation grant SES-0957189.

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