“Model building is the art of selecting those aspects of a process that are relevant to the question being asked.”

—  John H. Holland

Source: Hidden Order - How Adaptation Builds Complexity (1995), Ch 4. Simulating Echo, p. 146
Context: Model building is the art of selecting those aspects of a process that are relevant to the question being asked. As with any art, this selection is guided by taste, elegance, and metaphor; it is a matter of induction, rather than deduction. High science depends on this art.

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John H. Holland 19
US university professor 1929–2015

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