Nishanth Sastry Network Science: Science/buzzword?

0 Too many successful applications 0 Network motifs in biology 0 “Communities” and clusterings of various kinds 0 Social network phenomena 0 … 0 Does not mean it is not invoked as a buzzword 0 Becomes a buzzword because of other successes But: is it a science?

My Background 0 Computer scientist interested in data networks 0 Led to network science because of PSNs (IEEE TMC, 2011) 0 data delivery using human contact networks is slow because it relies on rare contacts 0 the network is resilient, and delivery is not much slower even if many of the rare contacts end up not happening 0 PhD looked at Social Network Support for Data Delivery 0 Currently run SIMPLEX workshop series at WWW (Simplifying Complex Networks for Practitioners)

A Practitioner’s Viewpoint 0 “Systems” and communications researchers rely on a bag of tricks/tools/theories/approaches 0 Information Theory 0 Game Theory 0 Public Key Crypto 0 … Is Network Science another more than “just another” tool? Is it a “Science”?

What is a science? 0 Are social sciences sciences? 0 Computer Science, or…? 0 Computer art? 0 Computer technology? 0 Software Engineering 0 Informatics  a mostly European term CS is young but older than network science. Still there are disagreements (See Denning, CACM’05) CS is young but older than network science. Still there are disagreements (See Denning, CACM’05)

The route to normal science 0 Key foundation of science is a paradigm 0 Attracts critical mass of adherents away from other work 0 Leaves open sufficient problems for others 0 Paradigms create science by building on top of previous work 0 Possible as all adherents agrees with the paradigm’s viewpoint 0 Paradigms lead to scientists formulating precise, directed questions Network science has potential to become a scientific practice

The checklist method 0 Is there an established paradigm?  Yes 0 Does it allow new ways of thinking?  Yes 0 Does it follow the scientific method? 0 Yes, very much so. Theory mostly backed by empirical data and validation (See Barabasi Nature Physics doi: /nphys2188) 0 Can you build careers out of it?  Apparently so! 0 Are there network science departments (like CS)?  Not yet Network science has potential to become a scientific practice

Dangers on the way 0 Are there Network Science Departments? 0 No! This can be a danger  Network Scientists could get splintered into multiple fields where applications are to be found. 0 Powerful method for data analysis. Could become creepy! 0 Regulation might limit research (similar to stem cells)

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