Slow-down or speed-up of inter- and intra-cluster diffusion of controversial knowledge in stubborn communities based on a small world network
Marcel Ausloos

TL;DR
This paper investigates how the diffusion of controversial knowledge varies in stubborn communities within small world networks, revealing that network size and community type significantly influence diffusion speed, with implications for understanding scientific belief dynamics.
Contribution
It introduces a novel analysis of knowledge diffusion in directed, non-reciprocal networks of stubborn agents, highlighting the effects of network size and community type on diffusion speed.
Findings
Diffusion slows down in larger networks.
Diffusion is slower in IDP communities and faster in DED communities.
Network size and community type significantly affect diffusion dynamics.
Abstract
Diffusion of knowledge is expected to be huge when agents are open minded. The report concerns a more difficult diffusion case when communities are made of stubborn agents. Communities having markedly different opinions are for example the Neocreationist and Intelligent Design Proponents (IDP), on one hand, and the Darwinian Evolution Defenders (DED), on the other hand. The case of knowledge diffusion within such communities is studied here on a network based on an adjacency matrix built from time ordered selected quotations of agents, whence for inter- and intra-communities. The network is intrinsically directed and not necessarily reciprocal. Thus, the adjacency matrices have complex eigenvalues, the eigenvectors present complex components. A quantification of the slow-down or speed-up effects of information diffusion in such temporal networks, with non-Markovian contact sequences,…
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