Abstract

The ongoing debate in philosophy of science over whether simulations are experiments has so far operated at too high a level of generality. I revisit this discussion in the context of simulation in astronomy and astrophysics, arguing that a specific subclass of simulations that include a significant amount of empirically obtained temporal data count as experiments. This subclass will be a small one, as the majority of simulations in astronomy and astrophysics will still suffer from a sparseness of data. But it remains the case that there exist examples of simulations that are experiments.