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Teleonomy, legibility, and diversity: Do we need more “proxynomics”?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2024

Oliver Braganza Open the ORCID record for Oliver Braganza [Opens in a new window] ,
Yohan J. John Open the ORCID record for Yohan J. John [Opens in a new window] ,
Leigh Caldwell  and
Dakota E. McCoy Open the ORCID record for Dakota E. McCoy [Opens in a new window]
Oliver Braganza*
Affiliation:
Institute for Experimental Epileptology and Cognition Research, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany oliver.braganza@ukbonn.de Institute for Socioeconomics, University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany
Yohan J. John
Affiliation:
Neural Systems Laboratory, Department of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Boston University, Boston yohan@bu.edu
Leigh Caldwell
Affiliation:
Irrational Agency, London, UK leigh@irrationalagency.com
Dakota E. McCoy
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA mccoy6@stanford.edu Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University, Pacific Grove, CA, USA Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
*
*Corresponding author.
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Abstract

When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. (Strathern, 1997)

Our target article set out with an ambitious goal: To provide a unified account of the disparate descriptions of proxy failure across not only social and natural sciences but also engineering and artificial intelligence research. Clearly such a task could only truly be achieved by a broad transdisciplinary community. The wide range of commentaries from a remarkable array of disciplines has not only confirmed our main proposition – that the disparate cases do reflect the same core phenomenon of “proxy failure” – but suggests the viability of a new interdisciplinary undertaking that we might call “proxynomics.” Several comments highlighted key issues and extensions, others provided novel illuminating examples and, perhaps most importantly, quite a few proposed viable solutions or at least mitigation strategies.

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Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 47 , 2024 , e88
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press

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