Elephant and ant: The social and cognitive organization of computer simulation

Abstract

The text comprises two main parts. The first part reflects on the status of simulation as scientific instrument and clarifies the relationship between modeling and instrumentation. The second part aims at investigating how simulation is organized. My main claim is that a turning point for simulation occurred around 1990 that signals a new quality of simulation in terms of its social and cognitive organization. Computational chemistry will serve as primary example. So-called density functional theory (DFT) has not yet received much attention from the side of science studies, whereas the 1990s turn propelled it into the arguably most widely used theory in all of chemistry and physics. This success, I argue, is based on networked and cheaply accessible computers as well as on how DFT is socially and cognitively organized, much like the power of ants depends on their organization.