Covid-19 and freedom

This article examines the multifaceted nature of freedom in relation to the world’s efforts to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic. The aim is to show that in democratic societies, increasing societal regulation to stop the spread of the virus does not necessarily curtail all possible conceptions of freedom. On the contrary, we can even construct new institutional realms or community-strengthening mechanisms through which some forms of freedom can materialise in an unforeseen manner. The heuristic model that informs the analysis is composed of six different embodiments of freedom.

Basic emotion theory, social constructionism, and the universal ethogram

While emotion researchers with an evolutionary and biological orientation increasingly agree that small sets of discrete emotions are basic or primary, other researchers – particularly social constructionists – instead argue that all emotions are expressions of language and culture largely unconstrained by biology. Emotions are indeed socially and psychologically constructed, but not from scratch, for the basic emotions have evolved as biologically-structured adaptive reactions to the most fundamental problems of life, and have a deep evolutionary history. These life-problems were first identified in herpetology, and elaborated in Plutchik’s universal ethogram, a behavioral profile of four problems of life – identity, temporality, hierarchy, and territoriality – shared by a wide range of animal species. Plutchik proposed that the opposite poles of each of these dimensions can represent prototypical life-situations requiring rapid adaptive reactions; these reactions comprise the eight primary emotions. By hypothesizing that these dimensions have evolved into elementary social-relations models, we establish a continuity between the sociorelational and biological levels of emotional experience. Identification of eight basic emotions enables a classification of 24 secondary and 56 tertiary level emotions.

Max Weber and the chemistry of the Protestant ethic

This article aims to reconstruct a possible interpretation of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism through the concept of elective affinity, which, as I have read, records fundamental implications for social science thinking. I argue that, in contrast to mechanical descriptions, Weber’s model sought to capture social phenomena through interactions between elements with heterogeneous qualitative properties. This effort, in turn, bears a very strong resemblance to the operation of social science models examining the functioning of complex systems. In line with this, I proceed as follows: first, I briefly outline the backbone of the argument of The Protestant Ethic, and then, through the concept of elective affinity, show how it can be fitted into one of the defining lines of current social science approaches. In line with this, I attempt to discuss the argument of The Protestant Ethic in the context of agent-based models. I argue that Weber’s approach can be seen as essentially a prototype of agent-based modeling.

Extreme environments: An educational framework for arts-based field research

Field station research locations offer scientists isolation and immersion for more precise statistical analysis of climate change and environmental damage. As more art/science initiatives develop in academia, art students are gaining access to difficult scientific research sites and using the experience to fuel creative strategies. The methodology for offering a course that taps these into possibilities for the teaching of creativity remains little explored. Through a case study at the School of Creative Media in Hong Kong, this article examines how student expeditions that work adjacent to environmental scientists in extreme environments can be used for the teaching of creativity and artistic process as well as informing a larger public on climate issues. The structure of the program with detailed descriptions of sequenced proficiencies is presented. Both pedagogical philosophy and logistic issues will be discussed through the set-up and organizational structure of the course, the variety of teaching materials, assignments, dissemination and finally the exhibition and impact of the students’ work. Using scientific resources with the goal of artistic interpretation, the pedagogy is designed to respond to the emerging potential of digital technologies in creative media. The results, both for the students and the public, demonstrate multimodal approaches that offer broader possibilities for learning and outreach that are both scalable and transferable.

Mapping the field of misinformation correction and its effects: A review of four decades of research

Why people still rely on misinformation after clear corrections is a major concern driving relevant research. Different fields, from psychology to marketing, have been seeking answers. Yet there remains no systematic review to integrate these theoretical and empirical insights. To fill the gap, this article reviewed 135 articles on misinformation correction and its effects written before 2020 to examine the knowledge generated in the field. Our findings indicate a consistent interest on this topic over the past four decades, and a sharp increase of relevant scholarly work in the last ten years. Nevertheless, most studies have been built upon psychological inquiries and quantitative methodologies. What is lacking includes longitudinal measurements of debunking effectiveness, theoretical insights beyond cognitive sciences, methodological contributions from qualitative approaches, and empirical evidence from non-western societies. With this analysis, we propose worthwhile focuses for future exploration.

The x and society syndrome

Half a century of behavioral, practice-oriented research in fields as diverse as politics, economy, law, and science has generated insights that improve our understanding of these fields’ workings considerably. Surveying the pertinent literature, however, also leads to a baffling finding: the social that this research sought to vindicate is not there. And this, the article shows, is no coincidence. Rather, it is a direct consequence of the middle range approach of theorizing this research both adopts and reflects; an artefact of a mode of analysis which makes the social into a derivative of an essential other: the topic under investigation. As a result, its meaning changes every time the analysis switches to a new field, to some other ‘x’. A proposal is made to fix this problem by drawing on general sociological theory, with whose help it can be easily avoided.

What makes a global movement? Analyzing the conditions for strong participation in the climate strike

The Fridays For Future movement and their global climate strikes put climate change on political agendas worldwide and created a new wave of climate activism. The emergence of a global movement is a rare and contingent phenomenon that promises insights for political sociology and globalization research. This study consists of a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) of 17 democratic countries to analyze the conditions for strong mobilization of the third global climate strike. Four mechanisms are identified, showing that trust in environmental movements, the availability of resources through international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) and information and communication technologies (ICT), and frame resonance are sufficient for explaining strong mobilization. These results illustrate that global movements depend on several equifinal mechanisms for mobilization on the nation-state level. Furthermore, the findings illustrate that the global features of a global movement are necessary but not sufficient for explaining its emergence.

When two science disciplines meet: Evaluating dynamics of conjunction. The encounter between astrophysics and artificial intelligence

This article points out some issues raised by the encounter between astrophysics (AP) and a newly emergent mathematical tool/discipline, namely artificial intelligence (AI). We suggest that this encounter has interesting consequences in terms of science evaluation. Our discussion favors an intra science perspective, both on the institutional and cognitive side. This encounter between machine learning (ML) and astrophysics points to three different consequences. (1) As a transverse tool, a same ML algorithm can be used for a diversity of very different disciplines and questions. This ambition and analytic intellectual architecture frequently identify similarities among apparently differentiated fields. (2) The perimeter of the disciplines involved in a research can lead to many and novel ways of collaboration between scientists and to new ways of evaluation of their work. And (3), the impossibility for the human mind to understand the processes involved in ML work raises the question of the reliability of results.

Missed marks: This is no longer the 20th century

Following an invitation by the editors of Social Science Information to react to an article by Olof Hallonsten, this article joins a debate about ways of evaluating science in our current context. This article presents an argument in support of the following four assertions and their importance to properly approach today the transformations of science evaluation and governance in the last decades: (a) scientific communities have failed to update their self-governance as societies transitioned from ‘rural-labor societies’ to ‘urban-knowledge societies’; (b) the ensuing discrepancy from expectations contributed to the economization of science; (c) we must consider two distinct processes of democratization; and (d) geopolitics plays an important role in the establishment of commodification in wealthy nations.

The oracles of science: On grant peer review and competitive funding

From a purely epistemological point of view, evaluating and predicting the future success of new research projects is often considered very difficult. Is it possible to forecast important findings and breakthrough in science, and if not, then what is the point trying to do it anyway? Still, that is what funding agencies all over the world expect their reviewers to do, but a number of previous studies has shown that this form of evaluation of innovation, promise and future impact are a fundamentally uncertain and arbitrary practice. This is the context that I will discuss in the present essay, and I will claim that there is a deeply irrational element embedded in today’s heavy reliance on experts to screen, rank and select among the increasing numbers of good research projects, because they can, in principal, never discern the true potential behind the written proposals. Hence, I think it is motivated to see grant peer review as an ‘oracle of science’. My overall focus will be on the limits of competitive funding and also that the writing and reviewing of proposals is a waste of researchers’ precious time. And I will propose that we really need to develop new ways of thinking about how we organize research and distribute opportunities within academia.