Douglas R. White
Encyclopedia
Douglas R. White is an American complexity researcher
, social anthropologist
, sociologist
, and social network
researcher at the University of California, Irvine.
, Columbia University
, and the University of Minnesota
, where he received a B.A.
in 1964, an M.A.
in 1967, and a Ph.D.
degree in 1969, all under advisor E. Adamson Hoebel and the Travelling Scholars Program.
White taught at the University of Pittsburgh
from 1967 to 1976. Since then he has been a Social Science Professor at the University of California, Irvine
, teaching in Social Relations, in Comparative Culture, in Social Networks and in Anthropology. He co-founded and has chaired the Social Networks
PhD program and within the Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences chairs the Social Dynamics and Complexity research group and the UC
four-campus videoconference group.
He is on the external faculty at the Santa Fe Institute
, the governing Council of the European Complex Systems Society, and served as President of the Social Science Computing Association and of the Linkages Development Research Council.
He founded the World Cultures
electronic journal in 1985 as part of the movement for open access scientific data and publication and founded the open access and peer reviewed Structure and Dynamics electronic journal in 2005, where he continues as editor-in-chief.
He is a recipient of the U.S. Distinguished Scientist Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the "Best Paper in Mathematical Sociology of 2004" Award of the American Sociological Association
(2004), and the 2007 "Viviana Zelizer Distinguished Scholarship Award" for the outstanding article published in the field of economic sociology in the previous two years.
A reaction to his latest book, Network Analysis and Ethnographic Problems
, by one reviewer, was that this "could be the most important book in anthropology in fifty years." His work on implications of feedback and feedforward processes, published in Physical Review
in collaboration with the founder of nonextensive physics
, a founder of chaos theory
, and two young computer scientists, provides one of the foundational network simulations for understanding complex networks.
Complexity
In general usage, complexity tends to be used to characterize something with many parts in intricate arrangement. The study of these complex linkages is the main goal of complex systems theory. In science there are at this time a number of approaches to characterizing complexity, many of which are...
, social anthropologist
Social anthropology
Social Anthropology is one of the four or five branches of anthropology that studies how contemporary human beings behave in social groups. Practitioners of social anthropology investigate, often through long-term, intensive field studies , the social organization of a particular person: customs,...
, sociologist
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
, and social network
Social network
A social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes", which are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.Social...
researcher at the University of California, Irvine.
Biography
Douglas White was born in Minneapolis in 1942. He attended the University of MichiganUniversity of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, and the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
, where he received a B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in 1964, an M.A.
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
in 1967, and a Ph.D.
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
degree in 1969, all under advisor E. Adamson Hoebel and the Travelling Scholars Program.
White taught at the University of Pittsburgh
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...
from 1967 to 1976. Since then he has been a Social Science Professor at the University of California, Irvine
University of California, Irvine
The University of California, Irvine , founded in 1965, is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, located in Irvine, California, USA...
, teaching in Social Relations, in Comparative Culture, in Social Networks and in Anthropology. He co-founded and has chaired the Social Networks
Social network
A social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes", which are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.Social...
PhD program and within the Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences chairs the Social Dynamics and Complexity research group and the UC
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
four-campus videoconference group.
He is on the external faculty at the Santa Fe Institute
Santa Fe Institute
The Santa Fe Institute is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, including physical, computational, biological, and social systems.The Institute houses a...
, the governing Council of the European Complex Systems Society, and served as President of the Social Science Computing Association and of the Linkages Development Research Council.
He founded the World Cultures
World cultures
World Cultures is an electronic and paper peer-reviewed academic journal of cross-cultural studies. It was founded in 1985 by Douglas R. White, who was the editor in chief until 1990, when Greg Truex took over, followed by J. Patrick Gray and Peter Peregrine . Gray remains the current editor. The...
electronic journal in 1985 as part of the movement for open access scientific data and publication and founded the open access and peer reviewed Structure and Dynamics electronic journal in 2005, where he continues as editor-in-chief.
He is a recipient of the U.S. Distinguished Scientist Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the "Best Paper in Mathematical Sociology of 2004" Award of the American Sociological Association
American Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association , founded in 1905 as the American Sociological Society , is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology by serving sociologists in their work and promoting their contributions to serve society.The ASA holds its...
(2004), and the 2007 "Viviana Zelizer Distinguished Scholarship Award" for the outstanding article published in the field of economic sociology in the previous two years.
Work
Major contributions of Douglas R. White:- Cross-cultural studiesCross-cultural studiesCross-cultural studies, sometimes called Holocultural Studies, is a specialization in anthropology and sister sciences that uses field data from many societies to examine the scope of human behavior and test hypotheses about human behavior and culture. Cross-cultural studies is the third form of...
, where he is known for studies of the division of labor, sexual division of labor, polygyny, marriage and kinshipKinshipKinship is a relationship between any entities that share a genealogical origin, through either biological, cultural, or historical descent. And descent groups, lineages, etc. are treated in their own subsections....
, his collaborative creation of the Standard Cross-Cultural SampleStandard cross-cultural sampleThe standard cross-cultural sample is a sample of 186 cultures, used by scholars engaged in cross-cultural studies.-Origin:Cross-cultural research entails a particular statistical problem, known as Galton's problem: tests of functional relationships can be confounded because the...
(SCCS), and public domain distribution of SCCS data, courseware and software, - Longitudinal studyLongitudinal studyA longitudinal study is a correlational research study that involves repeated observations of the same variables over long periods of time — often many decades. It is a type of observational study. Longitudinal studies are often used in psychology to study developmental trends across the...
of historical evolution and of field studies of human groups, larger societies, and city systems - Mathematical modeling of social, economic, and historical dynamics, as well as statistical entailmentEntailmentIn logic, entailment is a relation between a set of sentences and a sentence. Let Γ be a set of one or more sentences; let S1 be the conjunction of the elements of Γ, and let S2 be a sentence: then, Γ entails S2 if and only if S1 and not-S2 are logically inconsistent...
analysis, Galton's problemGalton's problemGalton’s problem, named after Sir Francis Galton, is the problem of drawing inferences from cross-cultural data, due to the statistical phenomenon now called autocorrelation. The problem is now recognized as a general one that applies to all nonexperimental studies and to experimental design as well...
, the Natchez Paradox, Structural endogamyStructural endogamyStructural endogamy is a network concept that provides a means of finding the boundaries of endogamy in a community, using simply the genealogical and marriage linkages. The concept is related to that of structural cohesion. The examples are made with free tool...
and network simulation, regular equivalence, flow centralityCentralityWithin graph theory and network analysis, there are various measures of the centrality of a vertex within a graph that determine the relative importance of a vertex within the graph...
, and structural cohesionStructural cohesionStructural cohesion is the sociological conception of cohesion in social groups. It is defined as the minimal number of actors in a social network that need to be removed to disconnect at least two actors in the remaining group. It is thus identical to the question of the node connectivity of a...
, - Social networks, including, more specifically, the network realism paradigm,
- Social complexity and complex-networkSocial-circles network modelThe generative model of feedback networks , studied by White, Kejžar, Tsallis, Farmer, or social-circles network model, defines a class of random graphs generated by simple processes that are common to edge formation and feedback loops in social circles...
system dynamics. - Standard Cross-Cultural SampleStandard cross-cultural sampleThe standard cross-cultural sample is a sample of 186 cultures, used by scholars engaged in cross-cultural studies.-Origin:Cross-cultural research entails a particular statistical problem, known as Galton's problem: tests of functional relationships can be confounded because the...
- System dynamicsSystem dynamicsSystem dynamics is an approach to understanding the behaviour of complex systems over time. It deals with internal feedback loops and time delays that affect the behaviour of the entire system. What makes using system dynamics different from other approaches to studying complex systems is the use...
Studies of world system dynamics and urban studies, including his current studies of urban dynamics over the last millennium,
A reaction to his latest book, Network Analysis and Ethnographic Problems
Network Analysis and Ethnographic Problems
Network Analysis and Ethnographic Problems: Process Models of a Turkish Nomad Clan is an anthropological and complexity science book by social anthropologists Douglas R. White, University of California, Irvine, and of the University of Cologne...
, by one reviewer, was that this "could be the most important book in anthropology in fifty years." His work on implications of feedback and feedforward processes, published in Physical Review
Physical Review
Physical Review is an American scientific journal founded in 1893 by Edward Nichols. It publishes original research and scientific and literature reviews on all aspects of physics. It is published by the American Physical Society. The journal is in its third series, and is split in several...
in collaboration with the founder of nonextensive physics
Constantino Tsallis
Constantino Tsallis is a naturalized Brazilian physicist working in Rio de Janeiro at CBPF, Brazil. He was born in Greece, and grew up in Argentina, where he studied physics at Instituto Balseiro, in Bariloche. In 1974 he received a Doctorat d'Etat et Sciences Physiques degree from the University...
, a founder of chaos theory
J. Doyne Farmer
J. Doyne Farmer is an American physicist and entrepreneur, with interest in chaos theory and complexity. He is a professor at the Santa Fe Institute. He was also a member of Eudaemonic Enterprises.-Biography:...
, and two young computer scientists, provides one of the foundational network simulations for understanding complex networks.
Books
White has authored or coauthored 4 books and over 100 articles, and edited 3 books and 2 special journal issues dealing with his research interests.- 1972, The Anthropology of Urban Environments. with Thomas Weaver. Society for Applied Anthropology, Monograph Series.
- 1975. Tuaraiscail: Report of the Committee on Language Attitudes Research Regarding Irish. 5 volumes. with Lilyan A. Brudner. Dublin: Government Printing Office.
- 1991, Research Methods in Social Network Analysis. with Linton C. Freeman and A. Kimball Romney. Transaction Publishers.
- 1998, Kinship, Networks, and Exchange : Structural Analysis in the Social Sciences, with Thomas Schweizer. Cambridge University Press.
- 2004, Network Analysis and Ethnographic Problems: Process Models of a Turkish Nomad Clan. with Ulla Johansen and Foreword by Andrey KorotayevAndrey KorotayevAndrey Korotayev is an anthropologist, economic historian, and sociologist, with major contributions to world-systems theory, cross-cultural studies, Near Eastern history, and mathematical modeling of social and economic macrodynamics.Education and career=Born in Moscow, Andrey Korotayev attended...
). Lexington Press.