Berlin 2012 – scientific programme

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SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme

SOE 10: Social Systems, Opinion and Group Dynamics I

SOE 10.2: Talk

Tuesday, March 27, 2012, 14:15–14:30, H 0110

Consensus formation and the scientific process: When does consensus equal truth? — •Stefan Bornholdt — Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Bremen

Science partly is a social endeavor: Not only has a scientific truth to be found, but also be accepted by the scientific community. History of science is full of scientific discoveries that took considerable time to break a prevalent (untrue) consensus, often surpassing the lifetime of the discoverer, as for example the concept of continental drift by Alfred Wegener.

A first mathematical model studying the interplay of convergent opinion formation and exploratory truth seeking was proposed by Hegselmann and Krause [1]. We here study an alternative implementation, replacing the one-dimensional opinion space of that model by an infinitely large space of possible hypotheses, as proposed in a recent cellular automaton model for the emergence of paradigms [2]. Striving for new ideas is represented by a never-return rule that breaks detailed balance of exchange of ideas, while pressure towards consensus is implemented through social interaction rules. One observes that consensus-seeking counteracts truth discovery in the model. These models may provide insights for science funding and policy.

[1] R. Hegselmann and U. Krause, Truth and Cognitive Division of Labor: First Steps towards a Computer Aided Social Epistemology, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 9 (2006).

[2] S. Bornholdt, M.H. Jensen, and K. Sneppen, Emergence and Decline of Scientific Paradigms, Phys. Rev. Lett. 106 (2011) 058701.