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Robust! Handle with Care

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Wybo Houkes  and
Krist Vaesen
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Abstract

Michael Weisberg has argued that robustness analysis is useful in evaluating both scientific models and their implications and that robustness analysis comes in three types that share their form and aim. We argue for three cautionary claims regarding Weisberg's reconstruction: (1) robustness analysis may be of limited or no value in evaluating models and their implications; (2) the unificatory reconstruction conceals that the three types of robustness differ in form and role; (3) there is no confluence of types of robustness. We illustrate our central first claim with a case study: the application of Lotka-Volterra models to technology diffusion.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 79 , Issue 3 , July 2012 , pp. 345 - 364
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

Research by Wybo Houkes and by Krist Vaesen was made possible by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). An earlier version of this article was presented at ECAP7, Milan, September 2011. We would like to thank, with the usual disclaimer, two anonymous referees for their helpful comments.

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