Perhaps simulation is not the panacea once hoped for. If we are to build realistic models - and surely we must to attempt to tackle social or cultural questions - then our models will not be simple, and will take considerable time and expense to construct.

At the end of the day, a simulationist can always respond with the claim that, without the sort of groundwork and bank of experience working with low-level, oversimplified models, we will never be able to model more realistic worlds. In the final analysis I would have to agree. Preliminary low-level modelling is necessary. As a linguist and computer scientist, however, I would urge scepticism concerning any results claimed from this early simulation work. It is not clear that the models take enough complexity into account to discover anything we could not have readily predicted from initial conditions. Simulations will develop, though, and it seems only a matter of time before simulation becomes a truly necessary investigative tool. I do believe we will need patience though!

Like much research, however, it seems clear that work on the origins of communication will likely be coopted into the practical world and we may eventually see a forms of computer-computer or even human-computer interaction arising from investigations originated in the EOL debate.

The final message is one of cautious optimism - we stand on the threshold of a new world but it seems that we will need to do a good deal more exploring of this new world before we find any suitable vantage points to look back upon the old.