The Post-Academic Trend in the Evolution of Methodological Consciousness

The development of science at all stages of its penetration into a technogenic society is accompanied by changes in methodological consciousness in its various incarnations. However, preferring to analyze the metamorphoses of science as special knowledge about the world, to examine the evolution of its methodological tools, forms of structural and functional organization of scientific and cognitive activity, at the same time, modern research practices leave aside the evolution of methodological consciousness as such. Although, according to the author, analysis of this phenomenon makes possible to define, if not a paradigmatic, then at least a syntagmatic approach to the study of modern post-academic science. The representation of methodological consciousness can be carried out in different versions. The article considers its evolution at various levels of functioning – individual and supra-individual, embodied in the methodological innovations of science itself as well as in the philosophical and methodological discourse interconnected with it. The assertion of unique forms of methodological consciousness at the supraindividual level, in particular, characterizes the development of modern social physics, which combines syntagmatics, inter- and transdisciplinarity as strategies of scientific search. The evolution of methodological consciousness at the individual level is inextricably linked with the renewal of the scientific habitus of individual scientists. In the context of the commercialization of post-academic science, destructive changes in the qualities of scientific creativity and scientific ethos undoubtedly affect the mental and cognitive components of the scientific habits of researchers. For the majority of the scientific community, the transformation of the scientific habitus proceeds spontaneously. Awareness of the uniqueness of post-academic science today occurs mainly within the framework of philosophical and methodological discourse. The result of this process is problematized by the author as a phenomenon of “post-academic philosophy of science,” characterized by a number of features of a substantive, methodological, and institutional nature. The question of its correlation with the traditional philosophy of science, on the one hand, and with disciplinary strategies in the study of science, on the other, opens up prospects for the emergence of new paradigms of modern philosophical and methodological discourse.

Social: An Algorithmic Stable Coin for Social Influence

Social is an algorithmic stable coin for social influence, built off of UMA or Universal Market Access Protocols, CloutContracts (CCS), and on the Celo network. It is based off of quantitative algorithmic stabilization provided by a social coin's perceived cryptographic value. Social is a utility and this technology is conceptual. How Social works, is by integrating statistical averages for CCS and social tokens staked within its network. It integrates universal market access in regards to CCS data (CloutContracts is a smart contracts platform for social influencers and creators). Social as an algorithmically pegged stable coin, will eventually create a standard for social influence. Decentralized finance applications might even peg cryptographic value to Social as a utility. Social can integrate decentralized oracles in order to process data much quicker over time, once the network becomes large enough. Since CloutContracts integrates social networks across various different places such as DeSo/BitClout, Minds, Peepeth, Steemit, etc., one can eventually establish some sort of cryptographic metric in regards to social influence, and develop complex algorithms centered around social physics and human behavioral processes. The same type of mathematical models that apply to quantitative algorithms in the stock market for example, can apply to social influence. The same also applies for mathematical models modeled after games like chess and go. Social as a stable coin, creates another complexity that CloutContracts can use to create new mathematical standards around market access data that it already has, and could be quite critical. Social influence as a market, and as some sort of utility, can then be looked at as either a metric, mathematical bet, or speculative model for new forms of political and human societies.

Is There a Critical Period for Second Language Acquisition? A theoretical Social Physics Approach

The critical period (CP) phenomenon in language development ranks among the 125 conundrums facing scientists in the 21st century, according to Science. While the phenomenon itself has been noncontroversial in first language acquisition, it still warrants an adequate explanation. Predicated on language acquisition as a complex process, questions among the first to be raised include: How do children accomplish this remarkable feat in such a short amount of time? And how do nature and nurture come together to influence language learning? In second language acquisition, however, both the notion of CP, albeit popular, and its empirical evidence have remained contested to this date - among the questions, whether the observed evidence counts as CP-specific and/or whether or not it warrants an isomorphic attribution to maturational constraints. Entwined in this debate are two well-established facets of inter-learner differential attainment. The first is that there exists a stark difference in ultimate attainment between younger and older learners. A second facet is the vast differences in ultimate attainment among older learners. In this article, adopting a social physics approach, we mathematically establish both the relationship between nature and nurture contributions and the presence of a critical period, and, at once, tender a parsimonious and probable theory for the twin phenomena of inter-learner differential attainment.

Epistemologies of predictive policing: Mathematical social science, social physics and machine learning

Predictive policing has become a new panacea for crime prevention. However, we still know too little about the performance of computational methods in the context of predictive policing. The paper provides a detailed analysis of existing approaches to algorithmic crime forecasting. First, it is explained how predictive policing makes use of predictive models to generate crime forecasts. Afterwards, three epistemologies of predictive policing are distinguished: mathematical social science, social physics and machine learning. Finally, it is shown that these epistemologies have significant implications for the constitution of predictive knowledge in terms of its genesis, scope, intelligibility and accessibility. It is the different ways future crimes are rendered knowledgeable in order to act upon them that reaffirm or reconfigure the status of criminological knowledge within the criminal justice system, direct the attention of law enforcement agencies to particular types of crimes and criminals and blank out others, satisfy the claim for the meaningfulness of predictions or break with it and allow professionals to understand the algorithmic systems they shall rely on or turn them into a black box. By distinguishing epistemologies and analysing their implications, this analysis provides insight into the techno-scientific foundations of predictive policing and enables us to critically engage with the socio-technical practices of algorithmic crime forecasting.

Gravitational Analysis in Regional Science and Spatial Economics: A Vector Gradient Approach to Trade

For decades, gravitational analysis has been a key instrument in analyzing spatial flows. Time and again, it has prompted new and challenging research questions. This paper provides a concise overview of the foundation, the conceptualization and empirical relevance of gravitational principles in regional science and spatial economics. Attention is also given to general “social physics” interpretations of gravity in spatial interaction models and to the impact of intangible distance frictions. The main emphasis in the study is placed on the significance of spatial impedance functions and gravity potential analysis. In particular, the paper focuses on cross-border trade and has three main goals: (i) to address the robustness of distance friction parameters related to trade borders, employing, inter alia, quantitative results from meta-analyses on trade models in spatial economics; (ii) to present a promising methodology based on gravity potential and the related gravitational gradient models that include directional intensities of flows; (iii) to test the validity of the latter approach on the basis of a vector gradient analysis of export patterns of the Netherlands. The paper argues that—despite the space-reducing impact of the modern digital technologies—gravitational principles still have an uncontested relevance in an analysis of spatial flows in regional science.

Adolphe Quetelet

Book review of: Donnelly, Kevin (2015) Adolphe Quetelet, Social Physics and the Average Men of Science, 1796–1874. University of Pittsburgh Press 219 pp.ISBN: 978-1-84893-568-6Price: $45