ANTH174-09 Deborah's Day 1 class notes

Hello! I'm the note taker for today. User:Deborah Blumenthal - Day 1 Sept 24 09

course website: http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/Human_Social_Complexity_and_World_Cultures_2009

1 Introduction

Our user names must be full first names and last names.

To add a link to a user's page, simply type [ [ User : user's name ] ] <-- w/o spaces

On the recent changes page, we can see what each classmate has written in their class notes... in order to access our personal notes, we just click on our name (in red) at the top of the page, then press "edit this page" and begin to write-- don't forget to save your work!

We can write outlines for our papers and ideas for the class on our pages so that they are searchable on Wikipedia and online.

2 What we'll be studying

We're studying the world because what we do in this world is all interdependent with **other cultures* in the world <-- principle that we will be focusing on (**ignored** in 1889 by Sir E.B. Tylor, but **raised** by **statistician Sir Francis Galton (see Wikipedia:Galton's problem)**.

An **example:** Truman won the election, even though the polls stated that his opponent would win. People aren't independent, therefore, you can't take a survey and expect that the entire population will follow what the survey says.

On day two, we're going to use illustrative tools for projects, day three will be understanding problems, and day four we will be using a program that computes results that predict the outcome to surveys using variables.

We can see on the class page, accessible through the 'recent changes' page, **as we add or edit pages on our wiki**.

An **Example of a class project with "value of children" as the dependent variable in an SCCS analysis using the method provided by Eff and Dow 2009, which solves Galton's problem:** If females contribute to subsistence (as opposed to men), the society values children more than a society where the males are the primary contributors to subsistence. We can look at the tables and look at the negative or positive values **of the coefficients for effects of independent variables** to determine the **differences in** norms for **societies across the world**. In these studies, the distances between the cultures have also been measured. We also must look at the significance pvalues **(e.g. p <.05 due to chance)**, to see if the numbers will likely be applicable to the **topic chosen** being studied. By day four, we'll be comfortable with this program so that we can use it throughout the class and being able to problem solve for the world so that our grandchildren can have a future if we can stop global warming. (**dw: you were thinking its one society we'll be studying, its actually the SCCS sample of all the world societies**

Dr. White will tell us about the lies about global warming that will make our life unbearable, like the lies from Exxon-Mobil **lobbyists salaried by the Bush administration** about global warming and the future of the planet. There are hundreds of thousands of such lies that have been exposed.

That being said, we're going to use the data in the program for this class.

We'll be talking about our projects day 5 until day 11, then moving on.

3 Due dates

paper draft = day 9

Powerpoint = day 11

final paper = Thursday of finals week

4 Important things to remember

GO TO CLASS TO PASS THE CLASS because Dr. White can view what changes are being made to your page and if you're taking notes and understanding what's going on in class. **(dw: More to the point: if you miss class, you may miss key information to do the term paper research**)

Day ONE (to be completed by day TWO) do the reading by Jahn Detlef. Click the name of the article to read it. Click the PDF button on the right side to open the PDF file. Discussion of Galton's problem. He looks at the different models of the way that **EU, i.e., European Union** societies are changing policies for purposes of competitiveness **or copying other countries with successful polities (convergence) or compensating citizens for their losses.

Another way **to find things is, for example,** to type Jahn Detlef into the search bar to get the page.

5 More info about the class

We're using the **collection of** case studies *from all over the world** called SCCS with hundreds of readings, hypotheses, factors of culture, an index of variables, **the bibliography of case studies used in the** Standard Cross-Cultural Sample, etc.

Install the free software called "R" to make a directory on our own machine in the lab. Super easy -- copy and paste. We'll be able to look up variables (ex: value of children) to study in the class easily. Bring a flashdrive so we can take files home with us and to ensure that our important files don't get erased by someone else.

Make sure to look at the day two outline to understand the term paper. Also, look at the Good jobs, good management, good government page, located on the day two (September 29th) page.

The United States has experienced a major crash and it has brought the world down with it. Ex: massive growth of inequality, economically speaking.