CMN 150V S20 Midterm (1-5) practice exam questions and 100%
complete answers| latest update 2026 grade A+.
1-02: What paradigm underlies "computational science"? - ANSWER: The digital
revolution
1-02: Which is true about the world's info storage capacity? - ANSWER: In the late
1980's, < 1% of all technologically stored info was digital, and now > 99% is digital
1-02: If we would take 5ZB of info and store it in books, how far would the pile
reach? - ANSWER: Many times from the Earth to the Sun
1-02: What does it mean that the amount of technologically stored information
"doubles" every 2-3 years? - ANSWER: Each 2-3 years, as much is added to what
we have accumulated since the very beginning
1-02: What changed in the announcement of the papacy from 2005 to 2013? -
ANSWER: More people document social reality nowadays
1-02: The DNA of all human cells stored ____ info than digital technology in 2014. -
ANSWER: less
1-02: What do evolutionary theorists say about the "Major Transitions in Evolution?"
- ANSWER: Every time we (life) came up with a new way of processing information,
a major transition happened
1-02: From this social evolutionary perspective, the digital and the biological are
merged when: - ANSWER: Society as a whole has become indispensably dependent
on digital technology
1-02: What's the difference between his two online courses? - ANSWER: The other
one is about how digital tech changes society and this one is about how digital tech
changes knowledge production
,1-04: The first wave of scientific advancements focused on: - ANSWER: A small
number of interrelated variables
1-04: The second wave of scientific advancements focused on: - ANSWER: Averages
of many (rather unknown) variables
1-04: Which of the following statements is NOT true? What we here called problems
of: - ANSWER: Complexity is modeled with simple averages of a small number of
interacting variables
1-04: Why is it limiting to study society with the dominant scientific methods from
the 19th and 20th century? - ANSWER: Societies contain more than 2-3 variables
and are too complex to be modeled with aggregate averages
1-05: When doing social science, we study what level of abstraction? - ANSWER:
Networks of people and their tech
1-05: How and in reference to what did he use the word "emergence"?
(pyramid of sciences) - ANSWER: At each of these levels, new rules/laws "emerge"
that can be studied
1-06: Who does the Anteater communicate with in this metaphor?
(referring to social emergence) - ANSWER: An ant colony called "Aunt Hillary" (a
collective intelligence "emerging" from many levels (think science pyramid)
originally from ants)
1-06: What baffled philosophers like Kant and sociologists like Durkheim? -
ANSWER: How predictable social patterns emerge from a bunch of individual free
will
1-06: What was a main distinction made by both economists like Smith and political
scientists like Rousseau? The distinction between: - ANSWER: The intention of the
individual and collective intentions of society
, 1-06: What did the eminent social scientist Karl Marx mean when he talked about
what others called the "basic metaphysical principle of Dialectics"? - ANSWER:
More of something (quantitative difference) can at some point create unexpected
emergent phenomena (qualitative changes)
1-06: All different kinds of "social science" disciplines are fundamentally interested
in: - ANSWER: How society emerges from individual parts
1-07: What was the main approach toward science adopted by Charles Darwin? -
ANSWER: He made empirical observations and from there, developed ideas
1-07: What did Albert Einstein do in 1905 and 1915? - ANSWER: He developed theory,
not based on empirical observations, but on ideas and first principles
1-07: How do Einstein and Darwin's methods relate to the "very short history of
science" of three consecutive waves that we had reviewed? - ANSWER: Einstein
worked on a problem with few variables (E=mc^2) and Darwin on one with average
tendencies of many observations
1-07: What is the so-called "digital footprint" or "digital trace"? - ANSWER: The
digital evidence you leave behind with a digital interaction
1-07: How do you approach science through induction? - ANSWER: Data => Analysis
=> Ideas
1-07: Loosely speaking, what term can you use to explain what a hypothesis is? -
ANSWER: A directed bet
1-07: The method that Albert Einstein spearheaded in the work on relativity by going
from mathematical theories over hypothesis toward observable phenomena is
called: - ANSWER: Deduction
1-08: The scientific approach going from empirical evidence ("statistics") to
theoretical framework ("on digital development") is called: - ANSWER: Induction
complete answers| latest update 2026 grade A+.
1-02: What paradigm underlies "computational science"? - ANSWER: The digital
revolution
1-02: Which is true about the world's info storage capacity? - ANSWER: In the late
1980's, < 1% of all technologically stored info was digital, and now > 99% is digital
1-02: If we would take 5ZB of info and store it in books, how far would the pile
reach? - ANSWER: Many times from the Earth to the Sun
1-02: What does it mean that the amount of technologically stored information
"doubles" every 2-3 years? - ANSWER: Each 2-3 years, as much is added to what
we have accumulated since the very beginning
1-02: What changed in the announcement of the papacy from 2005 to 2013? -
ANSWER: More people document social reality nowadays
1-02: The DNA of all human cells stored ____ info than digital technology in 2014. -
ANSWER: less
1-02: What do evolutionary theorists say about the "Major Transitions in Evolution?"
- ANSWER: Every time we (life) came up with a new way of processing information,
a major transition happened
1-02: From this social evolutionary perspective, the digital and the biological are
merged when: - ANSWER: Society as a whole has become indispensably dependent
on digital technology
1-02: What's the difference between his two online courses? - ANSWER: The other
one is about how digital tech changes society and this one is about how digital tech
changes knowledge production
,1-04: The first wave of scientific advancements focused on: - ANSWER: A small
number of interrelated variables
1-04: The second wave of scientific advancements focused on: - ANSWER: Averages
of many (rather unknown) variables
1-04: Which of the following statements is NOT true? What we here called problems
of: - ANSWER: Complexity is modeled with simple averages of a small number of
interacting variables
1-04: Why is it limiting to study society with the dominant scientific methods from
the 19th and 20th century? - ANSWER: Societies contain more than 2-3 variables
and are too complex to be modeled with aggregate averages
1-05: When doing social science, we study what level of abstraction? - ANSWER:
Networks of people and their tech
1-05: How and in reference to what did he use the word "emergence"?
(pyramid of sciences) - ANSWER: At each of these levels, new rules/laws "emerge"
that can be studied
1-06: Who does the Anteater communicate with in this metaphor?
(referring to social emergence) - ANSWER: An ant colony called "Aunt Hillary" (a
collective intelligence "emerging" from many levels (think science pyramid)
originally from ants)
1-06: What baffled philosophers like Kant and sociologists like Durkheim? -
ANSWER: How predictable social patterns emerge from a bunch of individual free
will
1-06: What was a main distinction made by both economists like Smith and political
scientists like Rousseau? The distinction between: - ANSWER: The intention of the
individual and collective intentions of society
, 1-06: What did the eminent social scientist Karl Marx mean when he talked about
what others called the "basic metaphysical principle of Dialectics"? - ANSWER:
More of something (quantitative difference) can at some point create unexpected
emergent phenomena (qualitative changes)
1-06: All different kinds of "social science" disciplines are fundamentally interested
in: - ANSWER: How society emerges from individual parts
1-07: What was the main approach toward science adopted by Charles Darwin? -
ANSWER: He made empirical observations and from there, developed ideas
1-07: What did Albert Einstein do in 1905 and 1915? - ANSWER: He developed theory,
not based on empirical observations, but on ideas and first principles
1-07: How do Einstein and Darwin's methods relate to the "very short history of
science" of three consecutive waves that we had reviewed? - ANSWER: Einstein
worked on a problem with few variables (E=mc^2) and Darwin on one with average
tendencies of many observations
1-07: What is the so-called "digital footprint" or "digital trace"? - ANSWER: The
digital evidence you leave behind with a digital interaction
1-07: How do you approach science through induction? - ANSWER: Data => Analysis
=> Ideas
1-07: Loosely speaking, what term can you use to explain what a hypothesis is? -
ANSWER: A directed bet
1-07: The method that Albert Einstein spearheaded in the work on relativity by going
from mathematical theories over hypothesis toward observable phenomena is
called: - ANSWER: Deduction
1-08: The scientific approach going from empirical evidence ("statistics") to
theoretical framework ("on digital development") is called: - ANSWER: Induction
