Spenser Easterbrook, a Philosophy and Math double major, joined Biology majors Aharon Walker and Nicholas Branson in a ten-week exploration of the connections between journal publications from the humanities and the sciences. They were guided by Rick Gawne and Jameson Clarke, graduate students from Philosophy and Biology.
Project Results
The team painstakingly created citation networks for several major philosophy journals and then analyzed the network structure using Gephi. Among other analyses, they found that a small fraction of the philosophy papers in this network were responsible for most of the citations to science journals. They presented their findings to the Moral Attitudes and Decision-Making Lab, and the dataset they created will be used next fall in an undergraduate philosophy class, funded under iiD’s Data Expeditions program.
Aharon presenting at the Moral Atittudes and Decision-Making Lab
Download the executive summary (PPTX).
Disciplines Involved
- Philosophy
- Network Analysis
Project Team
Undergraduates: Nicholas Branson, Aharon Walker, and Spenser Easterbrook
Project Mentors:
- Jameson Clarke, Ph.D. Candidate, Biology
- Rick Gawne, Ph.D. Candidate, Center for the Philosophy of Biology
