4 ms·

Maybe I'm in the minority but as a physicist it makes perfect sense to model micro-interactions to estimate emergent macro-scale patterns. What is your experien

• wrp 3y ago
  Three issues to distinguish here. Parent is referring to a change in usage of "computational social science" from meaning agent-based modeling to meaning statistical data analysis. This change in usage may have been driven by physicists moving into social science. You ask about modeling based on micro-interactions, which parent mentioned but did not comment on. You seem to ask why social scientists might be skeptical of physicists contributing to social science. My observation is that physicists tend to be extremely naive about the high dimensionality and nonlinearity of social science phenomena.
  • uoaei 3y ago
    Agent-based modeling is a form of modeling which explicates micro interactions to imply macro patterns. That is the connection here. Your comment looks like it was written by ChatGPT. It misses basic implications about agent-based modeling and has a lot of emphasis on "you seem to mean..." phrasing. Am I close, and if not, was this intentional?
    • wrp 3y ago
      It's just my natural pedantry from years of helping students clarify their research statements. :-)
• Anon84 3y ago
  I'm a physics PhD... so it's a bit of self-deprecating humor. As a wise man once said, the 10 scariest words for a social scientist are, "I'm from the Physics department, and I'm here to help". On a slightly more serious note, Physicists (and I've certainly been guilty of this as well) aren't always humble enough to learn why a specific field does things the way they do before immediately trying to impose their own approach (Ising models all the way down!)