Lecture Outline: Networks everywhere

• Introductions and Course Administration
  • Blackboard course website
  • Requirements/syllabus
  • Schedule of activities
• What is a network?
  • Things and relations between things
  • Things as any discrete objects (symbolic or material)
  • Relations among things (material flows (conserved), informational (non-conserved))
  • Key terms:  Nodes, Attributes, and Relations
• Networks everywhere: Contemporary Structural Perspectives
• Physical sciences
  • sub-atomic particles and strong and weak forces
  • molecular structures of atoms and electro-magnetic forces
  • macro-structure: bodies and gravitational forces
• Life sciences
  • genes and the stranded double helix
  • cells as communities of organisms
  • organs as networks of cells
  • functional systems of organs
  • organisms as bounded related functional systems
  • ecosystems as networks: food chains
  • environments as networks of communities and ecosystems
• Social sciences
  • The dual nature of the social sciences: material and cultural
  • The principles of co-evolution of human material and cultural structures
  • Cultural structures:
    • symbols
    • rituals
    • roles
    • institutions
    • cultures
  • Material structures:
    • dyads
    • triads
    • groups
    • communities
    • societies
    • global population
• Summary: Structuralism in science and social science

First data collection exercise

Review Questions

1. What is a "network?"

2. Explain the difference between a "material" and an "cultural or informational" relation at the abstract level. Think of examples networks that are defined by material relations among objects; by informational relations among objects.

3. The physical sciences organize their thinking using a hierarchy of objects and a hierarchy of forces (or relations) from micro to macro. Can you describe these hierarchies and show which relations are used to connect which kinds of objects?

4. The life sciences organize their thinking using a hierarchy of objects and a hierarchy of forces (or relations) from micro to macro. Can you describe these hierarchies and show which relations are used to connect which kinds of objects?

5. The social sciences have a "dual" character of material and cultural (or symbolic, or informational). What does this mean?

6. What does it mean to say that the material and cultural structures of human populations "co-evolve?"

7. The material side of social sciences uses a hierarchy of objects or "levels of analysis." Can you list this hierarchy, and give examples of the "objects" at each level of analysis?

8. The cultural or symbolic side of social sciences uses a hierarchy of objects or "levels of analysis." Can you list this hierarchy, and give examples of the "objects" at each level of analysis?

Application Questions

1. Pick up a novel. Open it to a page. Pick a paragraph, and pick a sentence within that paragraph. Sentences are often described as having "syntax" or "structure." Examine the sentence: what are the parts? what are the relations among the parts? Think about the paragraph -- what are it's parts? How might you describe the relations among these parts? How are the paragraphs connected into more "macro" structures that make up the novel?

2. Think about our class. What are the material objects relevant to understanding it? What are the kinds of relations that we might want to examine?

3. Think about your family -- what are the parts? What are the relations?

4. Think about an organizational chart -- is this a picture of a social network? What are the objects and the relations?

5. We are told that we are living in an era of "globalism." As a social scientist taking a structural perspective, can you try to be a bit more precise about what this term might actually mean (as opposed to the vague b.s. frequently used by commentators)?