Borrowing scientific theories
Can re-purposed science help us understand more than the physical world? Rachel Brazil talks to the scientists trying to play swap
Chemistry is underpinned by 200 years of chemical theory. The subject’s theoretical basis explains and mathematically models chemical processes and allows chemists to make predictions as to how molecular systems will behave. But in recent years, hunting for inspiration and predictive power, the social and political sciences have started to borrow concepts from the physical sciences to model very different phenomena. Sharing theoretical frameworks is an exciting new move for some from both sides of the science/social sciences divide, while others are much more sceptical. Can models developed to describe the physical world really explain and predict how people and economies work? And what about the other way round?