Computer simulations of the formation and evolution of large-scale structure in the universe are integral to the enterprise of modern cosmology. Establishing the reliability of these simulations has been extremely challenging, primarily because of epistemic opacity. In this setting, robustness analysis defined by requiring converging outputs from a diverse ensemble of simulations is insufficient to determine simulation validity. We propose an alternative path of structured code validation that applies eliminative reasoning to isolate and reduce possible sources of error, a potential path that is already being explored by some cosmologists.

中文翻译：

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验证盒子中的宇宙

宇宙大尺度结构形成和演化的计算机模拟是现代宇宙学事业不可或缺的一部分。建立这些模拟的可靠性极具挑战性，主要是因为认知不透明。在这种情况下，通过要求来自不同模拟集合的收敛输出定义的稳健性分析不足以确定模拟有效性。我们提出了一种结构化代码验证的替代路径，该路径应用消除推理来隔离和减少可能的错误来源，一些宇宙学家已经在探索这条潜在路径。