About

About Matt Turner

I am a social scientist who combines the precision of math with insights from across the cognitive and social sciences. I curate social science to be a tool in the sustainability scientist’s toolkit: unified enough to be intuitive, but respecting the inherent pluralism of behavioral sciences.

I currently serve as a Lecturer in Environmental Social Sciences at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, where I train students how to use social science to help promote the adoption of sustainable practices. Students learn how to design social influence and educational campaigns to increase the chances that sustainability goes viral.

Connect:
Email
Newsletter
LinkedIn
GitHub

From my early training in physics and mathematics, I learned to use equations to describe complex dynamics—and developed an intuition for constructing mechanistic models of real systems. As a professional software developer, I strengthened my engineering toolkit and expanded into economics, environmental systems, and the earth sciences. During my PhD, I integrated these strands through rigorous training in social, cognitive, and behavioral science—building a quantitative foundation for modeling collective behavior and decision-making.

As a Pandemic Preparedness Hub researcher, I founded Projeto Dourados, a transdisciplinary collaboration studying urban Indigenous infection dynamics in Brazil. The project reflects my broader commitment to scientific and cultural exchange between North and South America—particularly between Brazilians and Estadounidenses, who share the challenges of sustaining large, diverse democracies. My connection to Brazil began in 2008, when I learned Portuguese and conducted astrophysics research there.

Before earning my PhD in Cognitive and Information Sciences in 2021, I deliberately pursued breadth—moving across disciplines, sectors, and institutions to understand how ideas propagate and evolve. While many peers specialized narrowly, I built synthesis: linking methods from the physical and computational sciences with insights from the behavioral and social sciences. The work presented in this Book, Curriculum, and related materials continues that synthesis.

I am driven by a practical goal: to translate core principles of social science into scalable systems for innovation, adaptation, and coordination. This requires a working fluency in mathematics, computation, and theory—and the ability to build models that help organizations and institutions anticipate change and act effectively within it.

About the Project

Social Science for Sustainability by Matt Turner emerged from the need for a simple, but powerful and interdisciplinary social science to teach sustainability researchers and students quantitative social science. This includes necessary computational and cognitive science topics sustainability practicioners need to know because they matter for decision making in partnerships, institutions, in governments, and online.

I emphasize in the title that this is only my take, by including my name, Matt Turner. I want this to be anti-colonial. I am trying to liberate social science from disciplinary gatekeepers, not trying to become a gatekeeper myself. Still, I think my formulation may be useful, so I want to share it and see what others do with it.

I want you to be inspired to create your own Social Science for Sustainability by {Your Name Here}. If my version of Social Science doesn’t work for you, don’t use it! Make up your own and teach us about it, if you would, please.

Also, please share any feedback, positive or negative, with me via email!

Closing note on goals and principles: Consilience and Counterinduction for Sustainability

My goal with Social Science for Sustainability is to create a consilient, strategic curation of social science. Curation is a type of consolidation. In terms of scientific theories, consolidation means the theory uses fewer types of imagined (or theoretical) things and processes to model the real world.

For example, the theory of quantum mechanics consolidated once-disparate physics and chemistry research, helping us understand atoms, molecules, minerals, and biology in terms of a small set of principles and processes, expressed in a few equations.

When we consolidtate science theories, whether social science or physics, we get a default benefit of having fewer ideas, or mental “things”, we have to track with our limited working memory—and we need fewer words or mathematical characters to communicate our ideas to others.

Consilience is the added benefit that as we consolidate, we often gain useful and aesthetically pleasing connections between what seemed to be disconnected scientific phenomena. In other words, a consilient theory is more than just the sum of its parts.

So, consilience includes a sense of aesthetics, which serve a practical purpose: they train our gut instincts, which really matter for scientific insight. Aesthetics are a way to represent and study human energies or impulses that scientists have always used as a guide, beyond mere rationalism. I believe these impulses can be trained to make our work more satisfying and impactful.

My scientific work, for example, is energized by a dissatisfaction with conformity to arbitrary, unexamined norms or other social expectations. I enjoy uncovering how the hidden assumptions in theories, models, and experimental methods change our interpretation of social science research, and sometimes even our basic perceptions of reality.

I apply my impulse to examine the unexamined in my research: for example, in a soon-to-be released paper I show that it’s possible that measurements of a group’s average opinion over time can appear like it was radicalized, even if the true average opinion doesn’t change. It turns out that commonly-used opinion change measurement designs can clip changes in more extreme opinions, which can make mere agreement look like radicalization.

Philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend calls this the counterinductive method: we deduce, using math or simulation—or infer, experimentally—the consequences of making assumptions that are contrary to prevailing ones. Feyerabend identifies this impulse as the same one that fuels the Dada movement, and general impulse, in art. For scientists, I think the first Dada artist to check out would be the mystic, mathematical, and challenging works of Max Ernst.

I have been a fan of Dada art for years, as well as a scientific contrarian. Only recently did I read Feyerabend’s (1975;2005) Against Method and realize that I was not the only one who felt that Dada and the “counterinductive” method in science are animated from the same human impulse to challenge the arbitrary status quo.

# About {.unnumbered} ## About Matt Turner ![](Figures/cafecito-pic.png){.float-left width="200px"} I am a social scientist who combines the precision of math with insights from across the cognitive and social sciences. I curate social science to be a tool in the sustainability scientist's toolkit: unified enough to be intuitive, but respecting the inherent pluralism of behavioral sciences. I currently serve as a Lecturer in Environmental Social Sciences at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, where I train students how to use social science to help promote the adoption of sustainable practices. Students learn how to design social influence and educational campaigns to increase the chances that sustainability *goes viral*. ::: {.info-bar} - **Connect:** - [ Email](mailto:maturner@stanford.edu) - [ Newsletter](https://ss4s.substack.com) - [ LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mt-digital/) - [ GitHub](https://github.com/mt-digital) ::: From my early training in physics and mathematics, I learned to use equations to describe complex dynamics—and developed an intuition for constructing mechanistic models of real systems. As a professional software developer, I strengthened my engineering toolkit and expanded into economics, environmental systems, and the earth sciences. During my PhD, I integrated these strands through rigorous training in social, cognitive, and behavioral science—building a quantitative foundation for modeling collective behavior and decision-making. As a Pandemic Preparedness Hub researcher, I founded Projeto Dourados, a transdisciplinary collaboration studying urban Indigenous infection dynamics in Brazil. The project reflects my broader commitment to scientific and cultural exchange between North and South America—particularly between Brazilians and Estadounidenses, who share the challenges of sustaining large, diverse democracies. My connection to Brazil began in 2008, when I learned Portuguese and conducted astrophysics research there. Before earning my PhD in Cognitive and Information Sciences in 2021, I deliberately pursued breadth—moving across disciplines, sectors, and institutions to understand how ideas propagate and evolve. While many peers specialized narrowly, I built synthesis: linking methods from the physical and computational sciences with insights from the behavioral and social sciences. The work presented in this Book, Curriculum, and related materials continues that synthesis. I am driven by a practical goal: to translate core principles of social science into scalable systems for innovation, adaptation, and coordination. This requires a working fluency in mathematics, computation, and theory—and the ability to build models that help organizations and institutions anticipate change and act effectively within it. ## About the Project *Social Science for Sustainability by Matt Turner* emerged from the need for a simple, but powerful and interdisciplinary social science to teach sustainability researchers and students quantitative social science. This includes necessary computational and cognitive science topics sustainability practicioners need to know because they matter for decision making in partnerships, institutions, in governments, and online. I emphasize in the title that this is only my take, by including my name, *Matt Turner*. I want this to be anti-colonial. I am trying to liberate social science from disciplinary gatekeepers, not trying to become a gatekeeper myself. Still, I think my formulation may be useful, so I want to share it and see what others do with it. I want you to be inspired to create your own *Social Science for Sustainability by {Your Name Here}*. If my version of *Social Science* doesn't work for you, don't use it! Make up your own and teach us about it, if you would, please. Also, please share any feedback, positive or negative, with me [via email!](mailto:matt@mat.phd) --------------------------------------- ### Closing note on goals and principles: Consilience and Counterinduction for Sustainability My goal with *Social Science for Sustainability* is to create a consilient, strategic curation of social science. Curation is a type of consolidation. In terms of scientific theories, consolidation means the theory uses fewer types of imagined (or *theoretical*) things and processes to model the real world. For example, the theory of quantum mechanics consolidated once-disparate physics and chemistry research, helping us understand atoms, molecules, minerals, and biology in terms of a small set of principles and processes, expressed in a few equations. When we consolidtate science theories, whether social science or physics, we get a default benefit of having fewer ideas, or mental "things", we have to track with our limited working memory—and we need fewer words or mathematical characters to communicate our ideas to others. *Consilience* is the added benefit that as we consolidate, we often gain useful and aesthetically pleasing connections between what seemed to be disconnected scientific phenomena. In other words, a consilient theory is more than just the sum of its parts. So, consilience includes a sense of *aesthetics*, which serve a practical purpose: they train our gut instincts, which really matter for scientific insight. Aesthetics are a way to represent and study human *energies* or *impulses* that scientists have always used as a guide, beyond mere rationalism. I believe these impulses can be trained to make our work more satisfying and impactful. My scientific work, for example, is energized by a dissatisfaction with conformity to arbitrary, unexamined norms or other social expectations. I enjoy uncovering how the hidden assumptions in theories, models, and experimental methods change our interpretation of social science research, and sometimes even our basic perceptions of reality. I apply my impulse to examine the unexamined in my research: for example, in a soon-to-be released paper I show that it's possible that measurements of a group's average opinion over time can appear like it was radicalized, even if the true average opinion doesn't change. It turns out that commonly-used opinion change measurement designs can clip changes in more extreme opinions, which can make mere agreement look like radicalization. Philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend calls this the *counterinductive* method: we deduce, using math or simulation—or infer, experimentally—the consequences of making assumptions that are contrary to prevailing ones. Feyerabend identifies this impulse as the same one that fuels the Dada movement, and general impulse, in art. For scientists, I think the first Dada artist to check out would be the mystic, mathematical, and challenging works of [Max Ernst](https://pavlopoulos.wordpress.com/2010/12/27/the-mathematics-of-max-ernst/). I have been a fan of Dada art for years, as well as a scientific contrarian. Only recently did I read Feyerabend's (1975;2005) *Against Method* and realize that I was not the only one who felt that Dada and the "counterinductive" method in science are animated from the same human impulse to challenge the arbitrary status quo.