***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.sfu.ca/~insna/ *****
and to the anthropologists study of kinship networks.
On Sun, 26 Jan 2003, Steven Corman wrote:
> You could back it up even earlier to 1908: Georg Simmel _The web of group
> affiliations_
>
> Steve
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Valdis Krebs [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2003 10:09 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Erroneous facts / NyT article on social networks
>
>
> ***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.sfu.ca/~insna/ *****
>
> I often hear from clients, "Wow, you are working on really cool new stuff."
> I then tell them that what I am working on is actually older than me -- I'm
> standing on the shoulders of giants.
>
> I tell them that SNA started in the 1930s with Moreno's sociograms and then
> accelerated in the 1960s with mainframe computers, kept gathering steam with
> new research and algorithms in the 1970s and more powerful personal
> computers/software in the 1980s, became an accepted consulting tool in the
> 1990s, and really became popular in the last 5 years as the Internet crowd
> and other sciences started paying attention to connectivity, clusters,
> embeddedness, emergence, etc. -- the social structure of human behavior.
>
> Valdis
>
> ---- Steve Borgatti <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > ***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.sfu.ca/~insna/ *****
> >
> > Weren't there a pair of Boorman pieces on social networks in the Times
> many
> > years ago, long before the physicists noticed networks? And something on
> > Moreno a few decades before?
> >
> > Although, if memory serves (which means it mostly doesn't), those early
> > articles had something vaguely disturbing in common with the current
> > physicist-inspired ones -- an arrogant new- science-of-everything sort of
> > flavor.
> >
> > Maybe somebody can give the references and I can see if I'm making it all
> up
> > ...
> >
> > steve.
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Barry Wellman" <[log in to unmask]>
> > To: <[log in to unmask]>
> > Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2003 11:05 AM
> > Subject: Erroneous facts
> >
> >
> > > ***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.sfu.ca/~insna/ *****
> > >
> > > Dear Fellow Socnetters,
> > >
> > > I was both enthralled by the NY Times story last week discovering social
> > > network analysis and shocked by the claim that the field only got
> started
> > > with physicists in the 1990s. Duncan Watts, our recent keynoter, is
> > > prominently quoted, but I don't hold these factual mis-statements
> against
> > > him, as I've seen newspaper reporters -- including the Times -- do weird
> > > things before (to me).
> > >
> > > However, I have sent off the letter below to the NY Times. Perhaps you'd
> > > also like to educate them.
> > >
> > > Barry
> > > ___________________________________________________________________
> > >
> > > Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director
> > > [log in to unmask] http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman
> > >
> > > Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto
> > > 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162
> > > ___________________________________________________________________
> > >
> > > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > > Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 11:02:33 -0500
> > > From: Barry Wellman <[log in to unmask]>
> > > To: new york times letters <[log in to unmask]>
> > > Cc: duncan watts <[log in to unmask]>
> > > Subject: Erroneous facts
> > >
> > > Emily Eakin's story Jan 25 story ("Connect, They Say, Only Connect")
> makes
> > > a huge factual mistake by saying that network analysis as a discipline
> > > only started when physicists discovered it in the late 1990s. In
> reality,
> > > it's been going strong since the 1960s, with a substantial body of
> theory,
> > > method and substance. There are three journals [Social Networks,
> > > Connections - both published since the 1970s; and the Journal of Social
> > > Structure], an annual international and interdisciplinary conference
> > > (happening for about the 30th time next month), and an international
> > > society with about 500 members (the International Network for Social
> > > Network Analysis, which I founded in 1977). It's great that physicists
> > > (and the NY Times) are joining an already flourishing party.
> > >
> > > Barry
> > >
> > > ___________________________________________________________________
> > >
> > > Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director
> > > [log in to unmask] http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman
> > >
> > > Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto
> > > 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162
> > > ___________________________________________________________________
> > >
> > > _____________________________________________________________________
> > > SOCNET is a service of INSNA, the professional association for social
> > > network researchers (http://www.sfu.ca/~insna/). To unsubscribe, send
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> > >
> >
> > _____________________________________________________________________
> > SOCNET is a service of INSNA, the professional association for social
> > network researchers (http://www.sfu.ca/~insna/). To unsubscribe, send
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> > UNSUBSCRIBE SOCNET in the body of the message.
> >
> >
>
> _____________________________________________________________________
> SOCNET is a service of INSNA, the professional association for social
> network researchers (http://www.sfu.ca/~insna/). To unsubscribe, send
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> UNSUBSCRIBE SOCNET in the body of the message.
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****************************************************************
Blumstein-Jordan Professor of Sociology and Statistics
Department of Sociology
Box 353340
University of Washington
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Phone Numbers:
Office: (206) 685-3402
Dept Office: (206) 543-5882
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