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A Sourcebook for the Worldwide Discovery of a Creative Organic Universe
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II. Pedia Sapiens: A Planetary Progeny Comes to Her/His Own Actual Factual Knowledge

B. The Spiral of Science: Manican to American to Earthicana Phases

Lin, Yi and Shoucheng OuYang. Irregularities and Prediction of Major Disasters. New York: Taylor & Francis/Auerbach Publications, 2010. A volume in the Systems Evaluation, Prediction and Decision-Making Series, with a cover image of Yin and Yang superimposed on a landform map. Chinese scientists with international educations and appointments survey the field of nonlinear dynamics and its application to sudden global and local atmospheric and geological events. But a chapter “Evolution Science” is of special note for it draws a unique contrast of Western and Eastern modes of science, from their own perspective. In this view, as often cited, the West historically emphasizes quantitative “numbers,” a discrete calculus and partition of disciplines. An Asian approach tends to nature and society as a unified, organic whole, whereof integral “events” are primary. By this distinction the Book of Changes is seen to offer an evolutionary theory long before us late comers. (And this may simply explain why women may not be enthused male math and physics, for they are impoverished and incomplete.)

Cultural differences are created by those existing in the geographical conditions and environments so that people employ different methods to solve their individual problems. Different methods of knowing and explorations naturally create different spheres of livelihoods and regional streams of consciousness. No doubt, in the learning atmosphere that not all things can numbers describe, in the Eastern philosophies, the Chinese would not have made laws of nature to depend solely on quantities. However, not solely depending on quantities does not mean that China has never had schools of learning. That is why the Chinese established their theory of yin and yang and that of five elements – the theory about states and mutual reactions of materials, which is a system of logical transformations of structural characteristics of materials. (357)

We should be clear that the Chinese phrase “universe” contains different meanings from the English words cosmos or universe. The Chinese “universe” (yu shou) means space (yu) and time (shou) together while the English cosmos and universe only mean space. The first character “yu” specifies materials occupying all imaginable fields in all directions; the second character “shou” stands for “coming from the past and heading into the future.” (365-366)

Liu, Jiazhen, et al. Correlated Impact Dynamics in Science. arXiv:2303.03646. University of Miami physicists including Chaoming Song move on to discern how an intrinsic presence of complex network structures can serve to organize and advance worldwide research studies as they now ascend and advance to a worldwise pursuit.

Science progresses by building upon previous discoveries. It is commonly believed that the impact of scientific papers, as measured by citations, is positively correlated with the impact of past discoveries built upon. However, analyzing over 30 million papers and nearly a billion citations across multiple disciplines, we find that there is a long-term positive citation correlation, but a negative short-term correlation. We demonstrate that the key to resolving this paradox lies in a new concept, called "capacity", which captures the amount of originality remaining for a paper. We find there is an intimate link between capacity and impact dynamics that appears universal across the diverse fields we studied. The uncovered capacity measure not only explains the correlated impact dynamics across the sciences but also improves our understanding and predictions of high-impact discoveries. (Abstract)

Liu, Wenyuan, et al. Predicting the Evolution of Physics Research from a Complex Network Perspective. Entropy. 21/12, 2019. We cite this entry by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and Wroclaw University of Science, Poland computational intelligence researchers because it considers that the process of cumulative scientific inquiry and knowledge, which presently proceeds on a global scale, can be seen to exhibit and be treatable by the same dynamic multiplex networks as everywhere else. Here then is another way and reason to appreciate a planetary learning achievement due to humankinder altogether as it goes forth by itself. See also Knowledge Evolution in Physics Research: An Analysis of Bibliographic Coupling Networks by Wenyuan Liu, et al in PLOS One (September 2017). All of which quite accords with the intent of this Annotated Anthology website.

The advancement of science, as outlined by Popper and Kuhn, is largely qualitative, but with bibliometric data, it is possible to develop a quantitative picture of scientific progress. In this paper, we address this problem of quantitative knowledge evolution by analyzing the APS data sets from 1981 to 2010. We build the bibliographic coupling and co-citation networks to detect topical clusters (TCs), measure the similarity of TCs, and visualize the results as alluvial diagrams. We found the number of papers from certain journals, the degree, closeness, and betweenness to be the most predictive features. Our results represent the first step from a descriptive understanding of the science of science (SciSci), towards one that is ultimately prescriptive. (Abstract excerpt)

Lloyd, Geoffrey and Nathan Sivin. The Way and the Word. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. The grand history of science takes two distinct paths from Greece and China with their emphasis on either analytical rationality, logos, or interrelational context, the Tao.

Lucio-Arias, Diana and Loet Leydesdorff. The Dynamics of Exchanges and References among Scientific Texts, and the Autopoiesis of Discursive Knowledge. Journal of Informetrics. 3/3, 2009. University of Amsterdam communication researchers propose a “literary model” whereof articles, books, and websites represent node-like entities of the global Internet. This approach then fosters the recognition in this domain of collective human learning of the same self-organizing autopioetic living systems found everywhere else across nature and society.

In the case of the science system, the selection mechanisms operate differently from markets or non-market exchange mechanisms. In this paper, we contribute to the theme of “a science of science” by using Maturana & Varela’s theory of autopoiesis or self-organization, and Luhmann’s theory of social systems for the specification of how different selection mechanisms are constructed from and feed back upon the process of scientific publishing in recursive loops. The “literary model” of science enables us to trace publications and their dynamics, and therefore operationalize these evolutionary theories. Both the networks (at each moment of time) and the self-referential loops (over time) can be expected to operate as distributions: uncertainty in these distributions can be measured. (261-262)

Discursive knowledge is generated by exchanges of codified elements among texts (e.g., specific arguments and references) in a next-order dynamics. Socio-cognitive regimes emerge at the supra-individual level from (i) streams of publications, (ii) their reflexive decompositions and reconstructions in discursive exchanges, and (iii) the consequent dynamics in their positions in the network of communications. (264-265)

By using the literary model for developing indicators, one obtains fruitful heuristics. The focus is no longer on historical cases and single events, but on distributions in sampled document sets. The distributions enable us to test observations against hypotheses. We proceed in the following sections by elaborating on (a) how the basic mechanism of growth and change are generated by the continuous streams of publications; (b) how intellectual structures emerge as specialties and self-organize, (c) how this self-organization can be operationalized to measure reduction of uncertainty in systems of scientific communication using configurational information; and (d) how the science system interacts with other social systems. (263)

Mattiussi, Claudio, et al. The Age of Analog Networks. AI Magazine. Fall, 2008. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology engineers propose to improve a broad class of computational systems of service to society by their reinvention via guidance by natural creative principles. A key aspect is the employ of “evolutionary algorithms,” such as the second quote explains. And one may wonder whether a whole genesis universe might be running a stochastic program so as to self-select the fittest bioplanet, whereof increasing efforts such as this augur for its passage into sentient human furtherance.

A large class of systems of biological and technological relevance can be described as analog networks, that is, collections of dynamical devices interconnected by links of varying strength. Some examples of analog networks are genetic regulatory networks, metabolic networks, neural networks, analog electronic circuits, and control systems. Analog networks are typically complex systems which include nonlinear feedback loops and possess temporal dynamics at different time scales. (63)

Evolutionary algorithms are a class of population-based stochastic search algorithms inspired by the process of Darwinian evolution. An evolutionary algorithm maintains a collection (population) of tentative solutions called individuals. The goal of the search is defined via a user-defined measure of the quality of the individuals. The algorithm is required to find in the search space an individual with maximum quality… (72) Typically, an initial population is generated by randomly sampling the search space. At each step of the algorithm the quality of the individuals that form the population is evaluated and a subset of the population (the parents) is selected for reproduction. (72)

Mazioumian, Amin, et al. Global Multi-Level Analysis of the Scientific Food Web. Nature Scientific Reports. 3/1167, 2013. Systems sociologists Amin Mazioumian, Dirk Helbing and Sergi Lozano, ETH Zurich, with Katy Borner and Robert Light, Indiana University, draw an analogy between ecological networks and worldwide scientific pursuits and external repositories, since the same fluid topologies appear in each case. However, what might a more appropriate metaphor be? By any illumination, it would seem that an actual cerebral, neural net brain, humankind’s bilateral noosphere, is much in evolutionary formation. So put could our EarthKinder be imagined to be coming to her/his own salutary knowledge?

We introduce a network-based index analyzing excess scientific production and consumption to perform a comprehensive global analysis of scholarly knowledge production and diffusion on the level of continents, countries, and cities. Compared to measures of scientific production and consumption such as number of publications or citation rates, our network-based citation analysis offers a more differentiated picture of the ‘ecosystem of science’. Quantifying knowledge flows between 2000 and 2009, we identify global sources and sinks of knowledge production. Our knowledge flow index reveals, where ideas are born and consumed, thereby defining a global ‘scientific food web’. While Asia is quickly catching up in terms of publications and citation rates, we find that its dependence on knowledge consumption has further increased. (Abstract)

Merchant, Carolyn. The Death of Nature. New York: Harper & Row, 1980. A much-cited work that laments the takeover of an organic, pastoral society by partiarchical authority. A more feminine, communal harmony suffused this original agrarian age. With the male scientific revolution, the world came to be regarded more as a machine, which sanctioned technology and “progress.” Merchant provides an important historical grounding which augurs for, as articulated further in her later works, its potential resolve in an ecologically wise and humane Earth community.

Meyer, Eric and Ralph Schroeder. Knowledge Machines: Digital Transformations of the Sciences and Humanities. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2023. As science spirals in these 2020s from homo individuals and anthropic groups to an interactive Earthuman sapience, Oxford Internet Institute scholars provide a first book length treatment of this historic global transition. As this section, Earthificial Intelligence, Earth Learns and elsewhere record, by midsummer many subject such as astronomics, genetics, economics, social studies are shifting to this broadly conceived neural net machine method. Some chapters are A Digital Research Revolution?, Aggregating People and Machines: Collaborative Computation, Digital Research across the Disciplines: The Sciences and Social Sciences, and Open Science. But a salient difference is that while under human guidance (supposedly) these studies are meant to proceed on their own quest.

In Knowledge Machines, Eric Meyer and Ralph Schroeder argue that digital technologies have fundamentally changed research practices in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. They show that digital tools and data, used collectively and in distributed mode - which they term e-research — are now achieving new understandings from astronomy to literary analysis. They consider such topics as the challenges of sharing research data and of big data approaches, new forms of interdisciplinary collaboration and the ways that digital tools promote openness in science. (Publisher excerpt)

Miglio, Andrea, et al. PLATO as it is: a legacy mission for Galactic Archaeology. arXiv:1706.04319. We cite this entry by a 106 member team with postings in the UK, Denmark, Germany, France, Australia, Italy, Chile, the USA, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Portugal, and Romania as a 2017 example of the wholly worldwide nature of scientific progress. Its significance is a phenomenal achievement by a cooperative sapient species of cosmic self-quantification. Yet at the same moments nations and civilizations led by barbaric warlords seem bent on its destruction.

Deciphering the assembly history of the Milky Way is a formidable task, which becomes possible only if one can produce high-resolution chrono-chemo-kinematical maps of the Galaxy. Data from large-scale astrometric and spectroscopic surveys will soon provide us with a well-defined view of the current chemo-kinematical structure of the Milky Way, but will only enable a blurred view on the temporal sequence that led to the present-day Galaxy. As demonstrated by the (ongoing) exploitation of data from the pioneering photometric missions CoRoT, Kepler, and K2, asteroseismology provides the way forward: solar-like oscillating giants are excellent evolutionary clocks thanks to the availability of seismic constraints on their mass and to the tight age-initial-mass relation they adhere to. (Abstract)

PLATO is a space observatory under development by the European Space Agency for launch in 2025. The mission goals are to search for planetary transits of up to one million stars, to discover and characterize rocky extrasolar planets around yellow dwarf stars like our sun, subgiant stars, and red dwarf stars. The emphasis of the mission is on earth like planets in the habitable zone around sun-like stars where water can exist in liquid state.[2] It is the third medium-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision programme and named after the influential Greek philosopher Plato the founding figure of Western philosophy, science and mathematics. (Wikipedia)

Miller, Pamela and Ellin Scholnick, eds.. Toward a Feminist Developmental Psychology. New York: Routledge, 2000. A collection that articulates how science is deeply based on masculine metaphors such as argument, linear thinking and combative strategies which need to be rescued by feminine modes of collaborative friendship, relational systems and integral narrative. As opposed to the male penchant to isolate and reduce, a feminist epistemology would emphasize web, fugue, tapestry and dialogue.

Mitchell, Sandra. Unsimple Truths. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. The University of Pittsburgh philosopher of science clears thickets of a deterministic, reductive, Newtonian phase so as to advance novel approaches more suitable for an actual complex, evolutionarily emergent, natural fluidity. Her resolve going forward is dubbed “integrative pluralism” to express at once a modicum of consistency with a recognition of pervasive contingency. But the academic mindset of her field seems to parry any attempt to imagine or broach an intrinsic creation. Compare with Alisa Bokulich who engages the same issue, endorsing Mitchell’s phrase, but with an opening to a greater, discernible reality.

This book is designed to begin the discussion of an expansion and revision of the traditional views of science and knowledge, codified in the nineteenth century by English philosophers, trying to make all scientists into new-age Isaac Newtons. These perspectives have dominated philosophical reflections on science. In what follows, I target three areas of human thought and practice where complexity requires us to revise old conceptions of how to reason and act rationally. I will explore how the complexity and contingency of natural processes changes: how we conceptualize the workd, how we investigate the world, and how we act in the world. (18)

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