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Feeding the beast: can computational demographic models free us from the tyranny of data?

Feeding the beast: can computational demographic models free us from the tyranny of data?
Feeding the beast: can computational demographic models free us from the tyranny of data?
Since its inception, ALife has moved from producing large numbers of highly-idealised, theoretical models towards greater integration with empirically collected data. In contrast, demography — the interdisciplinary study of human populations — has been largely following the principles of logical empiricism, with models driven mainly by data, and insufficient attention being paid to theoretical investigation. Such an approach reduces the ability to produce micro-level explanations of population processes, which would be coherent with the phenomena observed at the macro level, without having to rely on ever-increasing data demands of complex demographic models. In this paper we argue that by bringing ALife-inspired, agent-based methods into demographic research, we can both develop a greater understanding of the processes underlying demographic change, and avoid a limiting over-dependence on potentially immense sets of data
0-262-29714-0
747-754
MIT Press
Silverman, Eric
641120a2-6584-46a6-a33b-4ea9133463af
Bijak, Jakub
e33bf9d3-fca6-405f-844c-4b2decf93c66
Noble, Jason
440f07ba-dbb8-4d66-b969-36cde4e3b764
Lenaerts, Tom
Giacobini, Mario
Bersini, Hugues
Bourgine, Paul
Dorigo, Marco
Doursat, Rene
Silverman, Eric
641120a2-6584-46a6-a33b-4ea9133463af
Bijak, Jakub
e33bf9d3-fca6-405f-844c-4b2decf93c66
Noble, Jason
440f07ba-dbb8-4d66-b969-36cde4e3b764
Lenaerts, Tom
Giacobini, Mario
Bersini, Hugues
Bourgine, Paul
Dorigo, Marco
Doursat, Rene

Silverman, Eric, Bijak, Jakub and Noble, Jason (2011) Feeding the beast: can computational demographic models free us from the tyranny of data? Lenaerts, Tom, Giacobini, Mario, Bersini, Hugues, Bourgine, Paul, Dorigo, Marco and Doursat, Rene (eds.) In Advances in Artificial Life, ECAL 2011: Proceedings of the Eleventh European Conference on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems. MIT Press. pp. 747-754 .

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

Since its inception, ALife has moved from producing large numbers of highly-idealised, theoretical models towards greater integration with empirically collected data. In contrast, demography — the interdisciplinary study of human populations — has been largely following the principles of logical empiricism, with models driven mainly by data, and insufficient attention being paid to theoretical investigation. Such an approach reduces the ability to produce micro-level explanations of population processes, which would be coherent with the phenomena observed at the macro level, without having to rely on ever-increasing data demands of complex demographic models. In this paper we argue that by bringing ALife-inspired, agent-based methods into demographic research, we can both develop a greater understanding of the processes underlying demographic change, and avoid a limiting over-dependence on potentially immense sets of data

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More information

Published date: 8 August 2011
Venue - Dates: conference; fr; 2011-08-08; 2011-08-12, Paris, France, 2011-08-08 - 2011-08-12
Organisations: Social Statistics & Demography, Agents, Interactions & Complexity

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 208395
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/208395
ISBN: 0-262-29714-0
PURE UUID: 720b04a0-22dd-4073-b002-c1f6a390ac98
ORCID for Jakub Bijak: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-2563-5040

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 20 Jan 2012 14:41
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:34

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Contributors

Author: Eric Silverman
Author: Jakub Bijak ORCID iD
Author: Jason Noble
Editor: Tom Lenaerts
Editor: Mario Giacobini
Editor: Hugues Bersini
Editor: Paul Bourgine
Editor: Marco Dorigo
Editor: Rene Doursat

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