for those of you who are sceptic about Psychohistory:
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May Lim, Richard Metzler, and Yaneer Bar-Yam*
ScienceMagazine - September 2007
[the link requires a subscription to sciencemag.org, but you can ask the article per email to the authors from here)]
*New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI)
Abstract:We identify a process of global pattern formation that causes regions to differentiate by culture. Violence arises at boundaries between regions that are not sufficiently well defined. We model cultural differentiation as a separation of groups whose membersprefer similar neighbors, with a characteristic group size at which violence occurs. Application of this model of the former Yugoslavia and to India accurately predicts the locations of reported conflict to the area. This model also points to imposed mixing or boundary clarification as mechanisms for promoting peace.
Prediction of regions of most probable ethnic violence (red areas) in the former Yugoslavia by a model based on the population distribution of ethnic groups in 1991. Credit: © Science
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I personally believe, socio historical patterns of human particles are statistically predictable.
I think Science has to focus more on this promising area which could benefit mankind quite a lot.
AZ
PS: thanks to MS for the tip!
Popularity: 84% [?]
Cheers! Sandra. R.
ing. Federico Fuga says:
March 31st, 2009 at 10:13
Do you remember PsychoHistory? Hari Seldon would agree with this theory.
(ah, dr. Asimov, how we miss you…)
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Klystron says:
March 31st, 2009 at 10:48
I’ve recently read this paper. Indeed an interesting new branch of research. Unfortunately, they focus a lot on their results and give only little detail on the methods. I guess this is usual for these “boulevard” journals like Science and Nature, and that’s why I prefer “real” scientific journals…
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alexziller says:
March 31st, 2009 at 10:57
Of course I do!
Actually this was the first thing I was thinking and I am mentioning it in the first line of the post..
Yes, we definitely miss the great Asimov, a kind of spiritual father for me. Probably the person I’ve never personally met who influenced most my life..
btw, on 6th of April there will be 17 years from his death.
And his books still sell quite good (since 1952 actually), despite I am convinced we live in times where most people cannot appreciate the deepness and geniality of his visions.
for me immortal..
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Massimo says:
March 31st, 2009 at 12:08
L’ultimo autore (che di solito e’ il capo) ha un nome decisamente molto ebraico. Chissa’ cosa dice il modello riguardo alla Palestina.. ci metto il collo che lo hanno applicato anche li ma non hanno pubblicato il risultato
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alexziller says:
March 31st, 2009 at 13:00
@Klystron: publishing on Science can certainly benefit Psychohistory (or at least the basic idea behind it) to be considered more seriously from serious people. For most people (including 49% of myself) it was just science-fiction..
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Massimo says:
March 31st, 2009 at 13:47
About the methods… have you tried to track other publications by the same authors? probably they gave away some technicalities in other and more specialistic journals.
Applying the model to only two scenarios doesn’t mean much, although it can be an interesting exercise. It would be interesting to know what results they got for Palestine, Rwanda, Sudan, etc etc…
Probably Yugoslavia and India were chosen for the lesser extent of foreign influence in the conflict, which would complicate the (metaphorical) equation enormously.
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Klystron says:
March 31st, 2009 at 14:33
No, I didn’t. Perhaps you’re right and more details are given elsewhere. I just would have appreciated just a little more explanation also in that article. Probably because I’m always slightly more interested in methods than in results… :o)
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