Physics and Social Science

From InterSciWiki

This page is a marker to open discussion on physics and social sciences.

Physics and Social Science: Figure 10.1 Citation patterns in the Small World literature. (c) 2004 Linton C. Freeman, The Development of Social Network Analysis, p. 166, Vancouver, CA: Empirical Press. Image courtesy of Kieran Healy. http://www.kieranhealy.org/403.html

SFI Jan 08 Conf: Is There a Physics of Society?

Bill Mace asks: Is the wheel being reinvented? And refers to Arthur Iberall and

Wikipedia:John Quincy Stewart. 1948. Demographic Gravitation: Evidence and Applications", Sociometry, Vol. 11, No. 1/2. (Feb. - May, 1948), pp. 31-58.[2]

Scott L. Feld American Scientist review: Looking at Patterns, Not People see: The Social Atom by Mark Buchanan (his blog)

Doug answers Bill and adds a post to:

Why are there no social physics?” In 1979 Bernard and Killworth proposed two reasons for our failure to develop adequate theory: focus on detail rather than generality - on behaviours, not underlying principles people are embedded in highly dynamic non-linear processes, difficult to describe using relatively brief ‘slices’ of observations.

On July 5, 2008, Mike Turvey (with Gene Yates) invites Doug to give the Iberall memorial lecture

Doug starts to write Social physics: Networks and causal chains

Some earlier talks:

Life and the Sciences of Complexity F. E. Yates

Understanding the Mind J. A. Scott Kelso