Samuel Arbesman

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  • October 4, 2011
  • 11:28 AM
  • 194 views

The Nanny and Aural Sexual Selection

by Samuel Arbesman in arbesman.net

Sexual selection, like many evolutionary concepts, was first anticipated by Charles Darwin and has since been elaborated in great detail. It is a powerful concept, explaining everything from the unwieldy nature of the peacock to the changing curves of Playboy centerfolds over the years. But this is all selection at the visual level. Just as [...]... Read more »

Apicella, C., & Feinberg, D. (2009) Voice pitch alters mate-choice-relevant perception in hunter–gatherers. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 276(1659), 1077-1082. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2008.1542  

  • August 2, 2011
  • 07:58 AM
  • 414 views

The Life-Spans of Empires

by Samuel Arbesman in arbesman.net

I recently published my first history article. Titled The Life-Spans of Empires, it’s published in the delightfully-named journal Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History. Using a fun dataset I unearthed from some articles in the Nineteen Seventies, I explore the lifespans of empires, and their similarities to other complex systems: The collapse [...]... Read more »

Samuel Arbesman. (2011) The Life-Spans of Empires. Historical Methods, 44(3), 127-129. info:/10.1080/01615440.2011.577733

  • June 30, 2011
  • 10:53 PM
  • 377 views

Eurekometrics: Analyzing the Nature of Discovery

by Samuel Arbesman in arbesman.net

I co-authored a perspective piece in the June issue of PLoS Computational Biology about a new subfield of scientometrics that Nicholas Christakis and I are calling eurekometrics: Until recently, the quantitative study of science has focused on studying patterns in publications, such as citation counts to discern impact, and in coauthorship networks to discern collaboration. [...]... Read more »

Arbesman, S., & Christakis, N. (2011) Eurekometrics: Analyzing the Nature of Discovery. PLoS Computational Biology, 7(6). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002072  

  • May 19, 2011
  • 09:32 AM
  • 492 views

Cultural Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny

by Samuel Arbesman in arbesman.net

In evolutionary biology, there is a now-discredited idea that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.” In other words, the development of an organism follows its evolutionary history. Human embryos look like they have gills because people evolved from fish, we have tails in utero because of the same origins, and so forth. In a recent paper in PLoS [...]... Read more »

  • April 5, 2011
  • 04:58 PM
  • 203 views

Geographic Constraints on Social Network Groups

by Samuel Arbesman in arbesman.net

I co-authored a paper in PLoS ONE, published today, entitled Geographic Constraints on Social Network Groups. Essentially, we tried to understand the relationship between position in a social network and physical location by examining social networks at the level of the social group. Here’s a figure from the paper that shows the interplay between the [...]... Read more »

Onnela, J., Arbesman, S., González, M., Barabási, A., & Christakis, N. (2011) Geographic Constraints on Social Network Groups. PLoS ONE, 6(4). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0016939  

  • December 12, 2010
  • 07:45 PM
  • 347 views

Work Habits of Highly Cited Scientists

by Samuel Arbesman in arbesman.net

In a recent paper in Scientometrics, a group of scientists examined what the social properties are of the most highly cited scientists in the fields of environmental science and ecology. They asked highly cited scientists (determined using ISIHighlyCited.com) to complete an online survey, and collected a wide variety of information, from demographics to perspectives on [...]... Read more »

  • November 8, 2010
  • 10:37 AM
  • 386 views

Humor in Scientific Publications

by Samuel Arbesman in arbesman.net


A couple of years ago, two researchers at the Technion tested whether or not funnier scientific article titles yielded higher citations. Their article, Amusing titles in scientific journals and article citation, takes the titles of over 1000 articles and has them rated on two scales, pleasantness and how amusing they are. They then checked to [...]... Read more »

Armstrong, J. (1989) Readability and prestige in scientific journals. Journal of Information Science, 15(2), 123-124. DOI: 10.1177/016555158901500209  

  • September 13, 2010
  • 08:57 PM
  • 543 views

When Will the First Earth-like Planet Be Discovered?

by Samuel Arbesman in arbesman.net

With news of new extrasolar planets being released nearly weekly, there is a general feeling that we are in the midst of a singular moment in cosmic discovery. And the news a few weeks ago of a planet that is about the same size as Earth has provided the sense that the discovery of a [...]... Read more »

  • August 24, 2010
  • 11:54 AM
  • 628 views

Differentiating Skill and Luck in Financial Markets with Streaks

by Samuel Arbesman in arbesman.net


Speaking of luck, we just released a paper onto SSRN about luck and skill entitled Differentiating Skill and Luck in Financial Markets with Streaks. This paper, which I worked on with Andrew Mauboussin (a brilliant high school student who worked in our lab this summer), examines the relationship between skill and luck using mutual fund [...]... Read more »

Andrew Mauboussin, & Samuel Arbesman. (2010) Differentiating Skill and Luck in Financial Markets with Streaks. SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract. info:/

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