Dlittle30

LATEST ARTICLES ( 899 )

• Modeling the Social

  

  One of the most interesting authorities on social models and simulations is Scott Page. This month he published a major book on this topic, The Model Thinker:... Read more

  Posted on 01 December 2018 SOCIETY

• Eleven Years of Understanding Society

  

  This month marks the end of the eleventh year of publication of Understanding Society. Thanks to all the readers and visitors who have made the blog so... Read more

  Posted on 21 November 2018 SOCIETY

• Sexual Harassment in Academic Contexts

  

  Sexual harassment of women in academic settings is regrettably common and pervasive, and its consequences are grave. At the same time, it is a remarkably... Read more

  Posted on 23 October 2018 SOCIETY

• System Effects

  

  Quite a few posts here have focused on the question of emergence in social ontology, the idea that there are causal processes and powers at work at the level... Read more

  Posted on 21 October 2018 SOCIETY

• Social Mobility Disaggregated

  

  There is a new exciting and valuable contribution from the research group around Raj Chetty, Nathan Hendren, and John Friedman, this time on the topic of... Read more

  Posted on 05 October 2018 SOCIETY

• Emotions as Neurophysiological Constructs

  

  Are emotions real? Are they hardwired to our physiology? Are they pre-cognitive and purely affective? Was Darwin right in speculating that facial expressions ar... Read more

  Posted on 03 October 2018 SOCIETY

• Philosophy and the Study of Technology Failure

  

  image: Adolf von Menzel, The Iron Rolling Mill (Modern Cyclopes)Readers may have noticed that my current research interests have to do with organizational... Read more

  Posted on 01 October 2018 SOCIETY

• James Scott on the Earliest States

  

  In 2011 James Scott gave a pair of Tanner Lectures at Harvard. He had chosen a topic for which he felt he had a fairly good understanding, having taught on earl... Read more

  Posted on 27 September 2018 SOCIETY

• System Safety

  

  An ongoing thread of posts here is concerned with organizational causes of large technology failures. The driving idea is that failures, accidents, and disaster... Read more

  Posted on 25 September 2018 SOCIETY

• Patient Safety

  

  An issue which is of concern to anyone who receives treatment in a hospital is the topic of patient safety. How likely is it that there will be a serious mistak... Read more

  Posted on 15 September 2018 SOCIETY

• Turing's Journey

  

  A recent post comments on the value of biography as a source of insight into history and thought. Currently I am reading Andrew Hodges' Alan Turing: The Enigma... Read more

  Posted on 01 September 2018 SOCIETY

• The Insights of Biography

  

  I have always found biographies a particularly interesting source of learning and stimulation. A recent example is a biography and celebration of Muthuvel... Read more

  Posted on 29 August 2018 SOCIETY

• Safety Culture Or Safety Behavior?

  

  Andrew Hopkins is a much-published expert on industrial safety who has an important set of insights into the causes of industrial accidents. Read more

  Posted on 19 August 2018 SOCIETY

• Rob Sellers on Recent Social Psychology

  

  Scientific fields are shaped by many apparently contingent and capricious facts. This is one of the key insights of science and technology studies. Read more

  Posted on 28 July 2018 SOCIETY

• Cyber Threats

  

  David Sanger's very interesting recent book, The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age, is a timely read this month, following the indictment... Read more

  Posted on 25 July 2018 SOCIETY

• Downward Causation

  

  I've argued for the idea that social phenomena are generated by the actions, thoughts, and mental frameworks of myriad actors (link). This expresses the idea... Read more

  Posted on 17 July 2018 SOCIETY

• Shakespeare on Tyranny

  

  Stephen Greenblatt is a literary critic and historian whose insights into philosophy and the contemporary world are genuinely and consistently profound. Read more

  Posted on 23 June 2018 SOCIETY

• Social Generativity and Complexity

  

  The idea of generativity in the realm of the social world expresses the notion that social phenomena are generated by the actions and thoughts of the individual... Read more

  Posted on 22 May 2018 SOCIETY

• What the Boss Wants to Hear ...

  

  According to David Halberstam in his outstanding history of the war in Vietnam, The Best and the Brightest, a prime cause of disastrous decision-making by... Read more

  Posted on 07 May 2018 SOCIETY

• Regulatory Failure

  

  When we think of the issues of health and safety that exist in a modern complex economy, it is impossible to imagine that these social goods will be produced... Read more

  Posted on 23 April 2018 SOCIETY