Does computational social science actually exist? Or is it a “strange attractor” A on a working paper. 1/

Many moons ago, I studied nanotechnology. Coming from physics, I was a bit irked about nanotech’s charisma despite the fact that it was largely a label applied on various, pre-existing fields. 2/

In making sense of nanotech, I thought of the idea of strange attractor as representing what happened when big science collapsed and the funding models of big bio became the rule. 3/

In this new, almost post-normal science, boundary objects coexist with strange attractors that bind communities together but resist any efforts at professionalization. 4/

This was nanotech: because it encompassed various pre-existing jurisdictions, it never became a field in and of itself, but more of a motley alliance policed by key figures, journals, and institutions w/o a core set of expertise. 5/

I think CSS is one of these strange attractors, an outcome of disciplines carving out a new space in the current funding environment for the social sciences and humanities, but without a fundamental reconstitution of expertise. 6/

CSS remains meaningful at a disciplinary level, and while there are similarities in curricula across institutions, the branching into fields is also very frequently. 7/

Yet in talking about CSS as ‘actually existing’, resources are mobilized much in the same way as nanotech mobilized funding 20 years ago. 8/

Does this present a break in knowledge? Not really. Strange attractors do not disrupt the paradigmatic fabric of fields. But is it important? Yes, because strange attractors distrust the distribution of resources. 9/