Will Wright, the creator of The Sims franchise, is certainly a brilliant man by all means. He once said this, quoted from Smartbomb, by Heather Chaplin and Aaron Ruby, “Simulation is quickly replacing experimentation as the central test of a new theory.”
While I do agree with his statement, it has a major flaw. Will Wright makes a very good point regarding the shift to more simulation-oriented testing, however I believe that simulation is simply another form of experimentation. Experimentation is “the use of tests and trials in order to make discoveries and assess hypotheses”. Using this Webster definition, a simulation is nothing more than an “up-to-date” form of a traditional scientific (or whatever subject) experiment.
I believe that traditional experimentation, the kind with test tubes, vials, lab coats and subjects, will eventually become obsolete to whatever degree possible. Simulations have the potential to be more accurate, less costly and ultimately safer than traditional experiments. As long as it’s possible to input the necessary parameters of an experiment into a computer program that can accurately simulate a response, then it would seem to be the most practical route. For example, if scientists are able to replicate all the possible factors of chemical reactions into a computer simulation, why wouldn’t they? It saves time, allows for easily repeated trials and reduces resource costs.
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