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Network Science: Science/buzzword?

Network Science: Science/buzzword?. Not a buzzword. Too many successful applications Network motifs in biology “Communities” and clusterings of various kinds Social network phenomena … Does not mean it is not invoked as a buzzword Becomes a buzzword because of other successes.

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Network Science: Science/buzzword?

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  1. Network Science: Science/buzzword?

  2. Not a buzzword • Too many successful applications • Network motifs in biology • “Communities” and clusterings of various kinds • Social network phenomena • … • Does not mean it is not invoked as a buzzword • Becomes a buzzword because of other successes But: is it a science?

  3. My Background • Computer scientist interested in data networks • Led to network science because of PSNs (IEEE TMC, 2011) • data delivery using human contact networks is slow because it relies on rare contacts • the network is resilient, and delivery is not much slower even if many of the rare contacts end up not happening • PhD looked at Social Network Support for Data Delivery • Currently run SIMPLEX workshop series at WWW (Simplifying Complex Networks for Practitioners)

  4. A Practitioner’s Viewpoint • “Systems” and communications researchers rely on a bag of tricks/tools/theories/approaches • Information Theory • Game Theory • Public Key Crypto • … Is Network Science another more than “just another” tool? Is it a “Science”?

  5. What is a science? • Are social sciences sciences? • Computer Science, or…? • Computer art? • Computer technology? • Software Engineering • Informatics  a mostly European term CS is young but older than network science. Still there are disagreements (See Denning, CACM’05)

  6. The route to normal science • Key foundation of science is a paradigm • Attracts critical mass of adherents away from other work • Leaves open sufficient problems for others • Paradigms create science by building on top of previous work • Possible as all adherents agrees with the paradigm’s viewpoint • Paradigms lead to scientists formulating precise, directed questions Network science has potential to become a scientific practice

  7. The checklist method • Is there an established paradigm?  Yes • Does it allow new ways of thinking?  Yes • Does it follow the scientific method? • Yes, very much so. Theory mostly backed by empirical data and validation (See Barabasi Nature Physics doi:10.1038/nphys2188) • Can youbuildcareers out of it?  Apparentlyso! • Are there network science departments (like CS)?  Not yet Network science has potential to become a scientific practice

  8. Dangers on the way • Are there Network Science Departments? • No! This canbe a danger  Network Scientistscouldgetsplinteredinto multiple fieldswhere applications are to befound. • Powerfulmethod for data analysis. Couldbecomecreepy! • Regulationmightlimitresearch (similar to stem cells)

  9. Not a buzzword. But… Is it more than a tool/theory/approach?

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