Generative Social Science

Just received a copy of Joshua M. Epstein's new book: Generative Social Science: Studies in Agent-Based Computational Modeling. While the worlds of engineering have used simulation methods for a long time to do analysis, research using simulation in the social sciences has always seemed less useful. People are by their nature less predictable and thus the results of such models have always been less useful by industry. Social models I have seen to date still treat people with an engineering mentality. Scanning his first chapters, Epstein covers some foundational assumptions of his methods. I look forward to better understanding this view.