Establishing an experimental science of culture: animal social diffusion experiments

Establishing an experimental science of culture: animal social diffusion experiments

A growing set of observational studies documenting putative cultural variations in wild animal populations has been complemented by experimental studies that can more rigorously distinguish between social and individual learning. However, these experiments typically examine only what one animal learns from another. Since the spread of culture is inherently a group-level phenomenon, greater vali...

Review. Establishing an experimental science of culture: animal social diffusion experiments.

A growing set of observational studies documenting putative cultural variations in wild animal populations has been complemented by experimental studies that can more rigorously distinguish between social and individual learning. However, these experiments typically examine only what one animal learns from another. Since the spread of culture is inherently a group-level phenomenon, greater vali...

Animal Genomics in Science, Social Science and Culture

Animals are commonplace in genomic research, yet to date there has been little direct interrogation of the position, role and construction of animals in the otherwise flourishing social science of genomics. Following a brief discussion of this omission, I go on to suggest that there is much of interest for the social sciences and the humanities in this field of science. I show that animal genom...

Animal Experiments in Medicine Animal houses, breeding of experimental animals

Online Experiments for Computational Social Science

Experiments are the gold standard for establishing causal relationships. While Web-based experiments (“A/B tests”) have routinely been used to assess alternative ranking models or user interface designs, they have become increasingly popular for answering important questions in the social sciences. This tutorial teaches attendees how to design, plan, implement, and analyze online experiments. F...