section_path: Limits of method/Science of complex systems
section_name: Science of complex systems
paragraph_text: Science of complex systems
  
  Science applied to complex systems can involve elements such as transdisciplinarity, systems theory, control theory, and scientific modelling.
  
  In general, the scientific method may be difficult to apply stringently to diverse, interconnected systems and large data sets. In particular, practices used within Big data, such as predictive analytics, may be considered to be at odds with the scientific method, as some of the data may have been stripped of the parameters which might be material in alternative hypotheses for an explanation; thus the stripped data would only serve to support the null hypothesis in the predictive analytics application. Fleck (1979), pp. 38–50 notes "a scientific discovery remains incomplete without considerations of the social practices that condition it".