Abstract
Simulation models of the Reiterated Prisoner’s Dilemma have been popular for studying the evolution of cooperation since more than 30 years now. However, there have been practically no successful instances of empirical application of any of these models. At the same time this lack of empirical testing and confirmation has almost entirely been ignored by the modelers community. In this paper, I examine some of the typical narratives and standard arguments with which these models are justified by their authors despite the lack of empirical validation. I find that most of the narratives and arguments are not at all compelling. None the less they seem to serve an important function in keeping the simulation business running despite its empirical shortcomings.
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Notes
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A referee pointed out to me that there is a tension in my paper between the reliance on a Popperian falsificationism and the implicit use of Kuhn’s paradigm concept. However, both can be reconciled if the former is understood in a normative and the latter in a descriptive sense. Popper’s falsificationism requires, though, that paradigms are not completely incommensurable. But then, there are many good reasons that speak against a strong reading of the incommensurability-thesis, anyway. (See the very enlightening remarks about Kuhn and Duhem-Quine in the case study by Zacharias (2013, 11ff., 305ff.).)
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- 3.
The details of this simulation are described in Schüßler (1997, 61ff.) and in a simpler form in Arnold (2008, 291ff.). For the curious: Schüßler achieves his effect, because the non-cooperators that break off the interaction are forced to pick a new partner from a pool that mostly contains non-cooperators from which it is impossible to rip a high payoff.
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This is my translation. The German original reads: “Eine der zentralen, klassischen Annahmen der normativistischen Soziologie besagt, daß in einer Austauschgesellschaft rationaler Egoisten keine stabilen Kooperationsverhältnisse entstehen können (vgl. Durkheim 1977, Parsons 1949). Angebliche Nachweise für diese These versuchen zu zeigen, daß bereits einfache, analystische Überlegungen zu diesem Schluß ausreichen. Die vorliegende Simulation sollte geeignet sein, diese Sicherheit zu erschüttern.” (Schüßler, 1997, 91)
- 5.
This was partly due to an inadvertency in the design of the model, where OBSERVE moves could – due to random errors – serve much the same function as INNOVATE moves. The authors of the study did, however, verify that their results are not just due to this particular effect Rendell et al (2010a).
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Arnold, E. (2015). How Models Fail. In: Misselhorn, C. (eds) Collective Agency and Cooperation in Natural and Artificial Systems. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 122. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15515-9_14
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