Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-05T02:56:15.707Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Testing Bottom-Up Models of Complex Citation Networks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Mark A. Bedau
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The robust behavior of the patent citation network is a complex target of recent bottom-up models in science. This paper investigates the purpose and testing of three especially simple bottom-up models of the citation count distribution observed in the patent citation network. The complex causal webs in the models generate weakly emergent patterns of behavior, and this explains both the need for empirical observation of computer simulations of the models and the epistemic harmlessness of the resulting epistemic opacity.

Type
Complex Systems
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 81 , Issue 5 , December 2014 , pp. 1131 - 1143
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

Thanks to Paul Humphreys, John Huss, Emily Parke, and the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments.

References

Arthur, W. Brian. 2009. The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Barabási, Albert-László, and Albert, Reka. 1999. “Emergence of Scaling in Random Networks.” Science 286:509–12.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bechtel, William, and Richards, Robert C.. 1993. Discovering Complexity: Decomposition and Localization as Strategies in Scientific Research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bedau, Mark A. 2003. “Downward Causation and Autonomy in Weak Emergence.” Principia Revista Internacional de Epistemologica 6:5–50. Reprinted in Bedau and Humphreys 2008, 155–88.Google Scholar
Bedau, Mark A. 2008. “Is Weak Emergence Just in the Mind?” Minds and Machines 18:443–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bedau, Mark A. 2011. “Weak Emergence and Computer Simulation.” In Models, Simulations, and Representations, ed. Humphreys, Paul and Imbert, Cyrille, 91–114. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Imbert, Cyrille 2013. “Minimal Memetics and the Evolution of Patented Technology.” Foundations of Science 4:791–807.Google Scholar
Bedau, Mark A., Buchanan, Andrew J., Chalmers, Devin W., Francis, C. Cooper, Packard, Norman H., and Pepper, Noah M.. 2011. “Evidence in the Patent Record for the Evolution of Technology Using Citation and PageRank Statistics.” In Advances in Artificial Life: Proceedings of ECAL 2011, ed. Lenaerts, T., Giacobini, M., Bersini, H., Bourgine, P., Dorigo, M., and Doursat, R., 77–84. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bedau, Mark A., and Humphreys, Paul, eds. 2008. Emergence: Contemporary Readings in Philosophy and Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchanan, Andrew, Packard, Norman H., and Bedau, Mark A.. 2011. “Measuring the Drivers of Technological Innovation in the Patent Record.” Artificial Life 17:109–22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chalmers, Devin, Francis, C. Cooper, Pepper, Noah, and Bedau, Mark A.. 2010. “High-Content Words in Patent Records Reflect Key Innovations in the Evolution of Technology.” In Proceedings of Artificial Life XII, ed. Fellermann, Harold, Dörr, Mark, Hanczy, Martin M., Laursen, Lone Ladegaard, Maurer, Sarah, Merkle, Daniel, Monnard, Pierre-Alain, St⊘y, Kasper, and Rasmussen, Steen, 838–45. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Frank, Steven A. 2009. “The Common Patterns in Nature.” Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22:1563–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grimm, Volker, and Railsback, Steven F.. 2005. Individual-Based Modeling and Ecology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humphreys, Paul. 2004. Extending Ourselves: Computational Science, Empiricism, and Scientific Method. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humphreys, Paul 2009. “The Philosophical Novelty of Computer Simulation Methods.” Synthese 169:615–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humphreys, Paul 2014. “Explanation as Condition Satisfaction.” Philosophy of Science, in this issue.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaffe, Adam B., and Trajtenberg, Manuel. 2002. Patents, Citations, and Innovations: A Window on the Knowledge Economy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kuhlmann, Meinard. 2014. “Explaining Financial Markets in Terms of Complex Systems.” Philosophy of Science, in this issue.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lehmann, Sune, Jackson, Andrew D., and Lautrup, Benny. 2005. “Life, Death and Preferential Attachment.” Europhysics Letters 69:298–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, Melanie. 2009. Complexity: A Guided Tour. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Parker, Wendy. 2009. “Does Matter Really Matter? Computer Simulations, Experiments, and Materiality.” Synthese 169:483–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Redner, Sidney. 1998. “How Popular Is Your Paper? An Empirical Study of the Citation Distribution.” European Physical Journal B 4:131–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schelling, Thomas. 1978. Micromotives and Macrobehavior. New York: Norton. Selections reprinted in Bedau and Humphreys 2008, 235–48.Google Scholar
Solé, Ricard, and Goodwin, Brian. 2008. Signs of Life: How Complexity Pervades Biology. New York: Basic.Google Scholar
Valverde, Sergi, Sole, Ricard V., Bedau, Mark A., and Packard, Norman. 2007. “Topology and Evolution of Technology Innovation Networks.” Physical Review E 76:056118-1–056118-7.Google ScholarPubMed
Weisberg, Michael. 2006. “Robustness Analysis.” Philosophy of Science 73:730–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weisberg, Michael 2007. “Three Kinds of Idealization.” Journal of Philosophy 104:639–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weisberg, Michael 2013. Simulation and Similarity: Using Models to Understand the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wimsatt, William. 1981. “Robustness, Reliability, and Overdetermination.” In Scientific Inquiry and the Social Sciences, ed. Brewer, M. and Collins, B., 124–63. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Repr. in Wimsatt 2007.Google Scholar
Collins, B. 1987. “False Model as Means to Truer Theories.” In Neutral Models in Biology, ed. Nitecki, M. and Hoffman, A., 23–55. London: Oxford University Press. Repr. in Wimsatt 2007.Google Scholar
Hoffman, A. 2007. Re-engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings: Piecewise Approximations to Reality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Winsberg, Eric. 2010. Science in the Age of Computer Simulation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolfram, Stephen. 1994. Cellular Automata and Complexity. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Selections reprinted in Bedau and Humphreys 2008, 387–93.Google Scholar
Wolfram, Stephen 2002. A New Kind of Science. Champaign, IL: Wolfram Media.Google Scholar