Complex systems science: Dreams of universality, interdisciplinarity reality

@article{Grauwin2012ComplexSS,
  title={Complex systems science: Dreams of universality, interdisciplinarity reality},
  author={Sebastian Grauwin and Guillaume Beslon and Eric Fleury and Sara Franceschelli and C{\'e}line Robardet and Jean-Baptiste Rouquier and Pablo Jensen},
  journal={J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol.},
  year={2012},
  volume={63},
  pages={1327-1338}
}
Using a large database (∼215,000 records) of relevant articles, we empirically study the complex systems field and its claims to find universal principles applying to systems in general. The study of references shared by the articles allows us to obtain a global point of view on the structure of this highly interdisciplinary field. We show that its overall coherence does not arise from a universal theory, but instead from computational techniques and fruitful adaptations of the idea of self… 
View PDF on arXiv
30 Citations
Background Citations
11
Methods Citations
2

Figures and Tables from this paper

30 Citations

Complexity Sciences: A Scientific Platform

The present article addresses to interdisciplinary studies and emergent domains literature by proposing a new concept to describe this domain, a meeting point between different specialties, which, on the basis of a flexible common ground, pursue together shared or parallel socio-epistemic objectives.

Feature analysis of multidisciplinary scientific collaboration patterns based on PNAS

The features of collaborations in and among the disciplines of biological, physical and social sciences are analyzed based on 52,803 papers published in a multidisciplinary journal PNAS during 1999 to 2013 and it is found that interdisciplinary research is undertaken by a considerable fraction of authors, not just those with many collaborators or those withMany papers.

Regimes of Evidence in Complexity Sciences

Since their inception in the 1980s, complexity sciences have been described as a revolutionary new domain of research. By describing some of the practices and assumptions of its representatives, the…

Does Size Matter? The Multipolar International Landscape of Nanoscience

An original method is developed that uses a bottom-up definition of scientific subfields to map the international structure of any scientific field, and shows that nanoscience research does not show a universal pattern of specialisation, homothetic of that of a single global leader (e.g., the United States).

'The whole is always smaller than its parts': a digital test of Gabriel Tardes' monads.

It is claimed that the new availability of digital data sets allows one to revisit Gabriel Tarde's social theory that entirely dispensed with using notions such as individual or society and that such a practice could modify social theory if it could visualize this new type of exploration in a coherent way.

Science maps for exploration, navigation, and reflection—A graphic approach to strategic thinking

It is concluded that science maps provide alternative views of the intricate structures of science to supplement traditional bibliometric information and may help strengthen strategic thinking and boost creativity and thus contribute to the progress of science.

Modeling the socio-semantic dynamics of scientific communities. (Modélisation des dynamiques socio-sémantiques dans les communautés scientifiques)

This thesis combines naturallanguage processing techniques and network theory methods to analyze a large dataset of scientific publications in the field of computationallinguistics, i.e. the ACL Anthology.

Evolution of the public understanding of science field based on a bibliometric analysis of two major journals

ABSTRACT This paper is part of the reflection initiated in 2016 following the 20th anniversary of the Public Understanding of Science Journal, analyzing both the thematic evolution of the journal…

A Scientometric Map of Global Educational Research

A bibliographic analysis of the Scopus database is used to describe educational research and a global map that consists of 18 research clusters that are connected by distinct sets of references is presented that can be used to explore the collectively built knowledge bases of educational research.

Education in the Age of Complexity: Building Systems Literacy

This research expands upon previously identified core complex systems knowledge, skills, and dispositions to contribute rich description to a working definition of the term systems literacy, develop a theory of how one becomes systems literate, and offer access points for educators entering the world of complexity.

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 76 REFERENCES

Revisiting "scale-free" networks.

  • E. Keller
  • Computer Science
    BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology
  • 2005
The real surprise, if any, is that power-law distributions are easy to generate, and by a variety of mechanisms; the architecture that results is not universal, but particular; it is determined by the actual constraints on the system in question.

Scale invariance and universality: organizing principles in complex systems

Organisms, Machines, and Thunderstorms: A History of Self-Organization, Part One

Over the last quarter century, the term "self-organization" has acquired a currency that, notwithstanding its long history, has been taken to signal a paradigm shift, and perhaps even a scientific…

Statistical mechanics of complex networks

A simple model based on these two principles was able to reproduce the power-law degree distribution of real networks, indicating a heterogeneous topology in which the majority of the nodes have a small degree, but there is a significant fraction of highly connected nodes that play an important role in the connectivity of the network.

Resolution limit in community detection

It is found that modularity optimization may fail to identify modules smaller than a scale which depends on the total size of the network and on the degree of interconnectedness of the modules, even in cases where modules are unambiguously defined.

Complexity and Context-Dependency

It is argued that given the “anti-anthropomorphic” principle—that the universe is not structured for our benefit—modelling trade-offs will necessarily mean that many of our models will be…

Competition between collective and individual dynamics

This work solves exactly a Schelling-like segregation model, which interpolates continuously between cooperative and individual dynamics, and shows that increasing the degree of cooperativity induces a qualitative transition from a segregated phase of low utility toward a mixed phase of high utility.

Community detection in graphs

Finding and evaluating community structure in networks.

  • M. NewmanM. Girvan
  • Computer Science
    Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics
  • 2004
It is demonstrated that the algorithms proposed are highly effective at discovering community structure in both computer-generated and real-world network data, and can be used to shed light on the sometimes dauntingly complex structure of networked systems.

Network Analysis in the Social Sciences

The kinds of things that social scientists have tried to explain using social network analysis are reviewed and a nutshell description of the basic assumptions, goals, and explanatory mechanisms prevalent in the field is provided.
...