John Henry Holland Quotes

Particular individuals do not recur, but their building blocks do.

Looking back to data, we can see if the consequences are plausible; looking forward to theory, we can see if general principles are suggested.

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.

The multiplier effect is a major feature of networks and flows. It arises regardless of the particular nature of the resource, be it goods, money, or messages.

When a new building block is discovered, the result is usually a range of innovations.

With theory, we can separate fundamental characteristics from fascinating idiosyncrasies and incidental features. Theory supplies landmarks and guideposts, and we begin to know what to observe and where to act.

"Doing science," particularly the synthesis of disparate ideas, is not as arcane as it is often made out to be. Discipline and taste play a vital role, but the activity is familiar to anyone who has made some effort to be creative.

If we are to understand the interactions of a large number of agents, we must first be able to describe the capabilities of individual agents.

This use of building blocks to generate internal models is a pervasive feature of complex adaptive systems.

The end point, a cas simulation with a realistic interface, is highly desirable, because it enables an ecologist, or economist, or politician to try out alternatives that could not possibly tried in real systems.

Unwrapping occurs when the "solution" is explicitly built into the program from the start.

The measure of performance of any given agent is the amount of money it accumulates through its actions.

There is more of a mystery to the origin of the pin factory that Adam Smith (1776) discusses in his Wealth of Nations than is generally realized.

Evolution continually innovates, but at each level it conserves the elements that are recombined to yield the innovations.

The recycling of resource by the aggregate behavior of a diverse array of agents is much more than the sum of the individual actions.