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>In the normal terminology, you get your model validated by comparing the behaviour >of agents and multi agent systems with the people, groups of people, organisations >or whatever your agents and multi agent systems are intended to represent. The scientific study of these things is called "sociology" (also "anthropology" "economics" and other social science disciplines). It sounds like you are accepting that sociology is relevant, thus I am puzzled by the following comment: >I just see these as pragmatic modelling decisions. If these decisions are >usefully to be informed by sociological knowledge, I would be very keen to know >how -- preferably by demonstration or concrete example. You wouldn't try to model a tornado without first being intimately familiar with meteorology. You wouldn't try to model the operations of a cell without being intimately familiar with cell biology. You wouldn't try to model a human cognitive process without being intimately familiar with cognitive psychology (although some AI researchers attempted this and famously failed, as I have already noted). So why would you try to model social phenomena without being familiar with sociology? The burden of proof is on those who argue that it's OK to be ignorant of the source discipline. R. Keith Sawyer Assistant Professor Program in Social Thought and Analysis Washington University Campus Box 1183 St. Louis, MO 63130 314-935-8724 http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~ksawyer %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%