The Center for Philosophy of Science invites you to our Featured Former Fellow Lecture presented by:   

Adrian Wuthrich

November 14 @ 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EST

Title: Characterizing a Collaboration by Its Communication Structure

Abstract:

I present first results of my analysis of a collection of about 24,000 email messages from internal mailing lists of a major particle physics collaboration during the years 2010–2013. I represent the communication on these mailing lists as a network in which the members of the collaboration are connected if they reply to each other’s messages. Such a network allows me to characterize the collaboration from a bird’s eye view of its communication structure in epistemically relevant terms. I propose to interpret established measures such as the density of the network as indicators for the degree of “collaborativeness” of the collaboration and the presence of “communities” as a sign of cognitive division of labor. Similar methods have been used in philosophical and historical studies of collective knowledge generation but mostly at the level of information exchange, cooperation and competition between individual researchers or small groups. The present analysis aims to take initial steps towards a transfer of these methods and bring them to bear on the processes of collaboration inside a “collective author.”

Zoom Link: https://pitt.zoom.us/j/93573085557

This talk will also be available live streamed on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrRp47ZMXD7NXO3a9Gyh2sg.

Catching up with Adrian

Where are you now?

I am a guest professor for History and Philosophy of Modern Science at the Technische Universität Berlin.

What are you working on?

Currently, I am working mostly for my project “Network Epistemology in Practice”. The main goal of the project is to better understand collective knowledge generation inside large scientific collaborations. Among other things, my small team and I will investigate to what extent cutting-edge tools from the computational humanities can help us see how knowledge unfolds through the intense digital communication inside a scientific collaboration.

Favorite memory of The Center?

I was impressed by the Cathedral of Learning. Having an office there felt really great.

Greatest non-professional achievement since leaving the Center?

Raising two wonderful children. (Task still ongoing…)

Best book/movie/tv you’ve seen lately?

“Machines Like Me” by Ian McEwan