Statistical Sociology
If I had children near the age of college, I'd steer them towards studying "statistical sociology". I am not even sure that there is such a field yet, MIT doesn't seem to have it, but I would bet that this will be a big research area in the very near future (The search on Google yields 1250 results today, I wonder what it will in a year).
We live in the golden age of statistics. Data is being collected about you in more ways than every before. Computers are ubiquitous, that's why. On the web, every click you make is indexed, tagged, measured and calculated. There is a lot of data collected, and with data comes statistics. If Google can make a Chinese to Arabic translator without anybody speaking either language, that means with enough data, language translation looks like a statistics (math) problem. That is the golden age of statistics. One of my favorite posts, is all about this and how statistics can even expand our understanding of history.
Sociology is entering its golden age with the help of statistics. In social networks, one's popularity can now be quantified, it's actions measured, and social effectiveness determined. Not just popularity, but all social actions of a person, including how many blog posts, comments, chats, winks, links they create are all calculated. From these, an equation of "social effectiveness" will emerge. We are seeing signs already. There is a great company in San Francisco named Red Bricks Media, that's doing a great job in understanding the impact of sociology in our age. They help companies identify influencers, and create buzz marketing. "Buzz marketing", while I hate the term, is the first application of statistical sociology. There will be more and more on the horizon. Just wait till ecommerce becomes social.
So if you have kids in high school, and they are mathematically oriented, channel them to take probability.
As for my kids, I first have to teach them what a "variable" is, and then find a creative way to generalize the concept and teach them what a "random variable" is. That may take some time :-)
Asimov (1951): Psychohistory
Posted by: Herwig | May 17, 2007 at 01:42 AM
Arrgh! See my next post on RWW!
Posted by: Emre Sokullu | May 17, 2007 at 04:44 AM
Asimov was one hell of a visionary, wasn't he?
Thanks
BK
Posted by: BK | May 17, 2007 at 06:23 AM
Statistics applied with purpose is an intelligence. IMIHO the only way to determine that purpose is to play with statistical measures in relationship to something valuable and meaningful.
If statistics are merely purposed for proof then statistical sociology is as statistical mundane as any form of clever number games. If in playing with statistics there is a deeper and purposeful method in the metric madness, then rich insights are the promise of the outcome.
Sentiment Analysis shows the relationship between statistics and emotion and such similar journeys into the human psyche are bound to produce interesting relationships, but for me the fundamental challenge is to create a statistical form that journeys into ones own being.
To create a measure of personal statistics that leads to creative insight is the ultimate in vaporizing the traditional mentality that pigeon holes people into left brain and right brain thinkers. This is an area that I have explored offline.
Statistical personalization would be for me what I would want to explore if the study of statistical sociology became an emergent discipline.
What is far more important is the mash up possibilities that exist in all disciplines and I agree that statistics in relationship to something is a powerful exploration.
It is more so when the discipline is not traditionally complimentary. Sociology and Quantum Physics or something like "Quantum Sociology" is the kind of leap of thinking that sounds just as interesting to me.
This is also a searchable term but what this tells me is that personal imagination is the emerging age not simply statistical imagination.
Traditionally people have been talking about fact vs faith. Such distinctions evaporate in this new mash up world. For me the corollary of fact is fiction, the corollary of faith is fear.
Fiction and fear are what I think statistical sociology would best served to overcome (but how then will society react to having its mythologies challenged when society has generally honored its myths with stats)... or at least that is the thinking that was inspired within me after reflecting on your statistical sociology post this evening.
M.
http://alwayson.goingon.com/user/Syven
Posted by: Syven | May 17, 2007 at 05:06 PM
M,
Your last paragraph says it all, and I agree completely.
Posted by: Baris Karadogan | May 17, 2007 at 09:29 PM
Baris the key point for me is about living in a time of mesmerizing change, and that means that sociology has to starts with us. Intelligently utilized statistics then become a doorway to personal insight.
From such a strong foundation sociology can then bcome a science of transformation rather than an artform built on top of a Victorian age theoritical base.
The question then becomes what is sociology loyal to, the present which is the future or the past which is the past?
Striipping the mythologies out of a discipline requires more than viewing fiction and fear from sociological eyes, it has far more relevance when the sociologist first comprehends their own sociology.
This means embracing sociology as a means of learning not to treat human life as a specimen but as a technology enabled intelligent real-time adaptation.
Sociology in this context isn't a mashup of psychology, pathology, anthropology or a history, it becomes a living relationship with society and environment - which to my mind should best serve to further human intelligence rather than academic interest.
How can academia possibly keep up with technological change unless sociology itself serves to awaken opportunity or even transforms the ritualistic and outdated habits of academia?
M.
http://alwayson.goingon.com/user/Syven
Posted by: Syven | May 18, 2007 at 05:45 AM
I wanted to say thanks for publishing among endless thousands of other similar blogs, one of the most useful sources of information anywhere. For months I have been designing a new web plan and the manner I envision all aspects so closely a part of the social web and all of it's amazing subcultures and trends, etc. Seeing from macro scale to microscale and so on - it is like a being in ways. I read some posts here on statistical sociology and it melted into my psyche! This truly is one of the best blogs in the entire web. Thanks again.
Posted by: Bobby Revell | May 29, 2007 at 01:27 PM