How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Python

Dr. Inga Popovaitė

The abundance of behavioral data online and cutting-edge computational techniques seem to promise an easier way to explain and model complex human behavior. However, elegant math theories and multiplex models are largely disconnected from social science theories. There is a divide between “traditional” social scientists and data scientists in approach to data analysis. I offer ways to address this divide in order to further advance computational social science and give examples of use of Python in social science research, from data collection to data analysis.