Attractive and Repulsive Paradigms
by tdaxp ~ March 19th, 2007
Zenpundit links to a fascinating map of scientific paradigms, courtesy of SEED Magazine. Some of the visualization is as expected: brain research and central nervous system research, for instance, have a lot to do with each other:
“Larger paradigms have more papers; node proximity and darker links indicate how many papers are shared between two paradigms. Flowing labels list common words unique to each paradigm, large labels general areas of scientific inquiry.”
But a broader view reveals a “donut hole” scientific enterprise: Far from the consilience hoped for by some, scientific research programs are as repulsive as they are attractive: there is no central science that ties the various fields together.
Repulsive Science
Depressingly, for example, social science has wandered far from her mother, Biology. While individual researches (say, Alford, Funk & Hibbing or Galor & Moav) attempt to unite these fields, such a conscilience is far from us now.
Not One Field Yet
I’ve written far less impressive things on this link. For my studies, I wrote on the educational implications of biology, as well as a nifty book review and some original research. And just for this blog, I discussed the interaction between politics and gender for my series on Christianity.
I think this is your...
March 22nd, 2007 at 12:00 am
“Ping '[1]' failed: HTTP error: 403 Forbidden”
You big Cheater, you!
— So I'm linking via comment!
“5GW Warriors: Sam Harris” at [2]
[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/trackback/1225101
[2] http://www.fifthgeneration.phaticcommunion.com/archives/2007/03/5gw_warriors_sam_harris.php
March 19th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Very useful post! Thanks for putting it up!
March 20th, 2007 at 12:00 am
No problem! I can't wait to see how you use it!
March 21st, 2007 at 12:00 am
My first observation is that I would have thought that there would have been some relationship between ecology and computer science based on all those nifty global warming models. There doesn't seem to be any connection though.
Strange…
March 22nd, 2007 at 12:00 am
I wonder if my MT installation can be configured with a plugin to add the neat auto-editing function of your blog's commenting section!
March 22nd, 2007 at 12:00 am
I hope no one ever confuses blogspirit incompetence with tdaxp maliciousness!
(That would be a cool feature — same way for blogspot. While blogspirit at least pretends to offer trackback, blogspot doesn't have them at all!)
March 22nd, 2007 at 12:00 am
O.K., I get it: “organic chemistry” is the clear opposite side of the tree from Mental Health and Health Care. Hmmm… Maybe THAT'S why our health care system is so screwed up…. As my pals at Eli Lilly like to say, “Better living through chemistry!”