From: Ronald C. Blue (rblue@lccc.edu)
Date: Sun Jun 02 2002 - 15:53:17 PDT
The question remains why are we out of the ET communications link. Ron
----- Original Message -----
From: Ian Pitchford
To: evolutionary-psychology@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2002 4:19 PM
Subject: [evol-psych] Essay by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi
Linked: The New Science of Networks
Albert-Laszlo Barabasi
INTERVIEWS & ESSAYS
Exclusive Author Essay
How many times have you met a stranger hundreds or thousands of miles away from
your home, just to realize after a five-minute discussion that you have a
common acquaintance? You say, "Small world..." and maybe mention John Guare's
Six Degrees of Separation, the hit Broadway play or its popular movie version.
But how is it that we're so close to perfect strangers? How is it possible to
have a path of three to five handshakes to just about any of the six billion
inhabitants of our crowded planet?
The answer lies in the fact that society is a very densely connected network in
which we are nodes, and links represent our numerous social, professional, or
family relationships. Recently, we've learned that the small worlds we
experience in society are just about everywhere. Three years ago, my research
group showed that most web pages are 19 clicks from each other, and that
between any two chemicals in our cells there is a chain of three reactions. We
learned that behind the popular "Kevin Bacon" game is Hollywood's tiny world,
in which most actors are only three links from each other via movies in which
they appeared together. Economists have realized that all Fortune 1000
directors are fewer than five handshakes from each other through the boards on
which they jointly serve.
Yet, the most important revelation about networks -- the one that is exciting
scientists from all disciplines -- has little to do with small worlds. Rather,
it is the realization that the networks appearing in all different segments of
nature and society are practically indistinguishable. We now understand that
real networks are far from being a bunch of nodes randomly linked to each
other. Instead, a few hubs -- nodes with an exceptionally large number of
connections -- keep most networks together. A few individuals with an
extraordinary ability to make friends keep society together. A few web pages to
which everybody links (such as Yahoo! and Google) hold the World Wide Web
together. Actors like Rod Steiger, who has links to more than 4,000 performers,
are keeping Hollywood together (sorry, Bacon is not one of these hubs).
Businessmen like Vernon Jordan hold the network of board directors together
(he's just three handshakes from all other Fortune 1000 directors). My ability
to write this essay is guaranteed by a few rather active molecules within my
cells -- ones that hold the subtle subcellular chemical network together.
In the last three years, we've learned that hubs play a key role in making our
world a small one. Just as when your journey between two small airports
inevitably takes you through one or two airline hubs, the hubs in social or
communication networks are at the center of the many paths connecting the
nodes. Hubs guarantee that buzz and ideas will spread or that your message on
the Internet gets to its destination in a very short time, and they are
responsible for the outbreak of medical epidemics and computer viruses.
Probably the important lesson that we can glean from the new science of
networks is that our small society is not that special. It follows simple but
rigid laws that govern the growth and evolution of most networks in nature. We
are just discovering how pervasive networks are, and how deeply they affect all
aspects of our life. We have learned that to make sense of this complex
interconnected world around us, we must start thinking networks. (Albert-László
Barabási)
More
__________
Sense and Nonsense: Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behaviour
by Kevin Laland, Gillian Brown
Hardcover (April 2002)
Oxford University Press; ISBN: 0198508840
AMAZON - US
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0198508840/darwinanddarwini/
AMAZON - UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0198508840/humannaturecom/
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Sun Jun 02 2002 - 16:03:10 PDT