Statements that are true independent of the data are analytic (informally, 
“tautological”).  If you are talking about properties of power laws you are 
probably describing “underlying reality”.  If you say some property of nature 
obeys a power law then probably not.

 

Frank

 

From: Friam [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2018 10:19 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Scant evidence of power laws

 

Absolute power corrupts absolutely – Lord Acton

 

The article is very good.  I recommend it to my fellow “citizens”.

 

What always amazes me about physicists is how easily they slide between their 
descriptive laws and their explanatory principles.  Is the power law a 
descriptive generality that can be falsified by statistical analysis or an 
“underlying Reality” that is true no matter what the data say. 

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> 
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Roger Critchlow
Sent: Friday, February 16, 2018 11:03 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Scant evidence of power laws

 

You missed it, it's linked in the lede, 2nd through 4th words.

 

-- rec --

 

On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 7:24 PM, uǝlƃ ☣ <[email protected]> wrote:

Did I miss it?  Or was this the article they (failed to) link(ed) to?

  Scale-free networks are rare
  https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.03400

On 02/16/2018 10:03 AM, Roger Frye wrote:
> https://www.quantamagazine.org/scant-evidence-of-power-laws-found-in-real-world-networks-20180215/

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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