Engineering Model Independence: A Strategy to Encourage Independence Among Models.
According to population biologist Richard Levins, every discipline has a "strategy of model building,"which involves implicit assumptions about epistemic goals and the types of abstractions and modeling approaches used. We will offer suggestions about how to model complex systems based upon a strate...
| Published in: | Techné: Research in Philosophy & Technology Vol. 22; no. 2; pp. 191 - 230 |
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
| Format: | Article |
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Philosophy Documentation Center
2018
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=130573541&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 130573541 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 01617249 2Y0N jtl: Techné: Research in Philosophy & Technology issn: 01617249 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: 2018 vid: 22 iid: 2 pid: 2411 pub: Philosophy Documentation Center artinfo: ui: 130573541 10.5840/techne201862283 ppf: 191 ppct: 39 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 1.3MB tig: atl: Engineering Model Independence: A Strategy to Encourage Independence Among Models. aug: au: Pirtle, Zachary Odenbaugh, Jay Hamilton, Andrew Szajnfarber, Zoe affil: Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering, George Washington University 20052 Philosophy, Lewis and Clark; 0615 S.W. Palatine Hill Road, MSC 45, Portland OR 97219 College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, University of Houston; 3507 Cullen Blvd, Room 214, Houston, Texas 77204-5008 su: Engineering models Levins, Richard, 1930-2016 Pluralism sug: subj: Engineering models Levins, Richard, 1930-2016 Pluralism keyword: epistemic strategy independence analysis levees Levins robustness ab: According to population biologist Richard Levins, every discipline has a "strategy of model building,"which involves implicit assumptions about epistemic goals and the types of abstractions and modeling approaches used. We will offer suggestions about how to model complex systems based upon a strategy focusing on independence in modeling. While there are many possible and desirable modeling strategies, we will contrast a model-independence-focused strategy with the more common modeling strategy of adding increasing levels of detail to a model. Levins calls the latter approach a 'brute force' strategy of modeling, which can encounter problems as it attempts to add increasing details and predictive precision. In contrast, a model-independence-focused strategy, which we call a 'pluralistic strategy,'draws off of Levins's use of an assemblage of multiple, simple and-critically-independent models of ecological systems in order to do predictive and explanatory analysis. We use the example of model analysis of levee failure during Hurricane Katrina to show what a pluralistic strategy looks like in engineering. Depending on one's strategy, one can deliberately engineer the set of available models in order to have more independent and complementary models that will be more likely to be accurate. We offer advice on ways of making models independent as well as a set of epistemic goals for model development that different models can emphasize. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Techné: Research in Philosophy & Technology is the property of Philosophy Documentation Center and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Techné: Research in Philosophy & Technology holder: Philosophy Documentation Center dt: @attributes: year: 2018 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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