To avoid normative assumptions of the model builders being implemented into the models, Canadian ecologist Crawford S. Holling developed the concept of adaptive modeling.

Modeling experiments during the 1970s raised the issues of global interdependencies and universal interactions between human, technological, and natural systems for the first time. But due to a lack of dynamic data and limited knowledge of the nature of these interdependencies and interactions, models became imprinted with the normative assumptions of their creators. This text, published in support of the seminar Modeling Wicked Problems, which took place during Anthropocene Campus 2014, considers the work of Canadian ecologist Crawford S. Holling, who developed adaptive modeling with the aim of circumventing this recurring problem.