scholarly journals When we can trust computers (and when we can't)

2021 ◽  
Vol 379 (2197) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter V. Coveney ◽  
Roger R. Highfield
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Uncertainty Quantification ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Computational Modelling ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Science And Engineering ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Building Trust ◽  
The Social

With the relentless rise of computer power, there is a widespread expectation that computers can solve the most pressing problems of science, and even more besides. We explore the limits of computational modelling and conclude that, in the domains of science and engineering which are relatively simple and firmly grounded in theory, these methods are indeed powerful. Even so, the availability of code, data and documentation, along with a range of techniques for validation, verification and uncertainty quantification, are essential for building trust in computer-generated findings. When it comes to complex systems in domains of science that are less firmly grounded in theory, notably biology and medicine, to say nothing of the social sciences and humanities, computers can create the illusion of objectivity, not least because the rise of big data and machine-learning pose new challenges to reproducibility, while lacking true explanatory power. We also discuss important aspects of the natural world which cannot be solved by digital means. In the long term, renewed emphasis on analogue methods will be necessary to temper the excessive faith currently placed in digital computation. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Reliability and reproducibility in computational science: implementing verification, validation and uncertainty quantification in silico ’.

scholarly journals The anthropology of human-environment relations

Focaal ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 (82) ◽  
pp. 64-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Penny McCall Howard
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Human Environment ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Human Intentionality ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ecological Relations

What are Marxists to make of the new wave of materialism that has become influential in anthropology and across the social sciences and humanities? An ethnography of fishing in coastal Scotland and an analysis of Tim Ingold’s ecological anthropology demonstrates both the usefulness and gaps in contemporary ecological and materialist anthropology. It finds that the reduced role for political economy, human intentionality, and material results in this literature significantly reduces their explanatory power. Efforts to unite analysis of humans and nonhumans have led to a lack of attention to the divisions within human societies, particularly the alienation of labor and therefore of ecological relations in capitalism. Understanding these dynamics is essential to contending with the current planetary ecological crisis.

scholarly journals Building together digital archives for research in social sciences and humanities

2010 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 415-443 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benoît Habert ◽  
Claude Huc
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Pilot Project ◽  
Digital Information ◽  
Digital Archives ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Institutional Issues ◽  
The Social ◽  
Background Context

In order to help understand the possible interplay between transmission and digitization, a pilot project for the long-term preservation of research data in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) is presented by its two coordinators. The article provides some background context on transmission in digital form of past and present research in SSH. It shows the discrepancy between the increasing role of digital information and its fragility. It presents the standard abstract model for archival information systems and the way it was instantiated in the pilot project. It ends with some reflexive remarks on the factors that are bound to act upon the future of such projects: organizational behaviours, role of data and knowledge, communities of users, institutional issues and status of collective memory in SSH.

Unbecoming: The aftereffects of autoethnography

Ethnography ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brent Luvaas
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Research Methodology ◽  
Scientific Training ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Academic Knowledge ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Scientific

Autoethnography is a research methodology that employs conscious becoming as a strategy for producing academic knowledge. As it grows in popularity across disciplines in the social sciences and humanities, should those who employ the methodology start thinking through the consequences of such becoming for the person engaging in it? This essay draws from the author’s long-term work on street style bloggers to argue that autoethnography is a practice with risks both practical and existential, and it suggests that social scientific training should begin to take into consideration the kinds of people ethnographers have to become in order to do their work.

Women break down the barriers to the Vietnamese social sciences and humanities

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quan-Hoang Vuong
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Middle Income Country ◽  
Women In Science ◽  
Income Country ◽  
The West ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Low And Middle Income

Valian rightly made a case for better recognition of women in science during the Nobel week in October 2018 (Valian, 2018). However, it seems most published views about gender inequality in Nature focused on the West. This correspondence shifts the focus to women in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in a low- and middle-income country (LMIC).

A sketch of the education landscape in biomimetic and biohybrid systems

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Mura ◽  
Tony J. Prescott
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Course Development ◽  
Science And Engineering ◽  
Arts And Humanities ◽  
Research And Innovation ◽  
Innovation Activities ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Us ◽  
Societal Context ◽  
Discipline Programs

The Living Machines approach, which can be seen as an exemplar methodology for a wider initiative towards “convergent science,” implies and requires a transdisciplinary understanding that bridges from between science and engineering and to the social sciences, arts, and humanities. In addition, it emphasizes a mix of basic and applied approaches whilst also requiring an awareness of the societal context in which modern research and innovation activities are conducted. This chapter explores the education landscape for postgraduate programs related to the concept of Living Machines, highlighting some challenges that should be addressed and providing suggestions for future course development and policy making. The chapter also reviews some of the within-discipline and across-discipline programs that currently exist, particularly within Europe and the US, and outlines an exemplar degree program that could provide the multi-faceted training needed to pursue research and innovation in Living Machines.

scholarly journals Post-Islamism and Intellectual Production: A Bibliometric Analysis of the Evolution of Contemporary Islamic Thought

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Mohamed Amine Brahimi ◽  
Houssem Ben Lazreg
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Scientific Field ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Islamic Reform ◽  
The Social ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
Thinking Differently ◽  
Intellectual Production ◽  
Representative Samples

The advent of the 1990s marked, among other things, the restructuring of the Muslim world in its relation to Islam. This new context has proved to be extremely favorable to the emergence of scholars who define themselves as reformists or modernists. They have dedicated themselves to reform in Islam based on the values of peace, human rights, and secular governance. One can find an example of this approach in the works of renowned intellectuals such as Farid Esack, Mohamed Talbi, or Mohamed Arkoun, to name a few. However, the question of Islamic reform has been debated during the 19th and 20th centuries. This article aims to comprehend the historical evolution of contemporary reformist thinkers in the scientific field. The literature surrounding these intellectuals is based primarily on content analysis. These approaches share a type of reading that focuses on the interaction and codetermination of religious interpretations rather than on the relationships and social dynamics that constitute them. Despite these contributions, it seems vital to question this contemporary thinking differently: what influence does the context of post-Islamism have on the emergence of this intellectual trend? What connections does it have with the social sciences and humanities? How did it evolve historically? In this context, the researchers will analyze co-citations in representative samples to illustrate the theoretical framework in which these intellectuals are located, and its evolution. Using selected cases, this process will help us to both underline the empowerment of contemporary Islamic thought and the formation of a real corpus of works seeking to reform Islam.

scholarly journals Subaltern Debris: Archaeology and Marginalized Communities

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Beatriz Marín-Aguilera
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Patricia Hill Collins ◽  
Definition Of

Archaeologists, like many other scholars in the Social Sciences and Humanities, are particularly concerned with the study of past and present subalterns. Yet the very concept of ‘the subaltern’ is elusive and rarely theorized in archaeological literature, or it is only mentioned in passing. This article engages with the work of Gramsci and Patricia Hill Collins to map a more comprehensive definition of subalternity, and to develop a methodology to chart the different ways in which subalternity is manifested and reproduced.

The Distribution of Emotions: Affective Politics of Emancipation

Hypatia ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 580-596 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brigitte Bargetz
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Affect Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
The Social

Currently, affect and emotions are a widely discussed political topic. At least since the early 1990s, different disciplines—from the social sciences and humanities to science and technoscience—have increasingly engaged in studying and conceptualizing affect, emotion, feeling, and sensation, evoking yet another turn that is frequently framed as the “affective turn.” Within queer feminist affect theory, two positions have emerged: following Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's well‐known critique, there are either more “paranoid” or more “reparative” approaches toward affect. Whereas the latter emphasize the potentialities of affect, the former argue that one should question the mere idea of affect as liberation and promise. Here, I suggest moving beyond a critique or celebration of affect by embracing the political ambivalence of affect. For this queer feminist theorizing of affective politics, I adapt Jacques Rancière's theory of the political and particularly his understanding of emancipation. Rancière takes emancipation into account without, however, uncritically endorsing or celebrating a politics of liberation. I draw on his famous idea of the “distribution of the sensible” and reframe it as the “distribution of emotions,” by which I develop a multilayered approach toward a nonidentitarian, nondichotomous, and emancipatory queer feminist theory of affective politics.

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