***** 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
> an email message to [log in to unmask] containing the line
> 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
an email message to [log in to unmask] containing the line
UNSUBSCRIBE SOCNET in the body of the message.
