Qualitative Reasoning beyond the Physics Domain: The Density Dependence Model of Organizational Ecology
Jaap Kamps, Gábor Péli · UvA-DARE (University of Amsterdam) · 1995
Qualitative reasoning is tradition- ally associated with the domain of physics, al- though the domain of application is, in fact, much broader. This paper investigates the application of qualitative reasoning beyond the domain of physics. It presents a case study of application in the social sciences: the density dependence the- ory of organizational ecology. It discusses how the dierent nature of soft science domains will com- plicate the process of building. Further- more, it shows that the model building process can also help making theoretically important de- cisions, and, as a result, have an impact on the original theory. This will require a shift in focus from the model simulation process towards the model building process.