Social Complexity and Global Academic Systems

A New Kind of Sociology Probes U.S. Public Higher Education

Hank Allen

Professor of Sociology, Wheaton College (IL) 60187

Abstract

This session will discuss how Mathematica 7 can dissect inconspicuous social and organizational changes among flagship research universities in ten selected states from 1980-2010 (Allen 2009). This inquiry is crucial because, from ancient times, those nations with the most advanced mathematical and scientific expertise have disproportionately dominated the planetary division of labor (Gowers 2008; Rhodes 2001; Ben-David 1984; Boorstin 1983). Hence, preliminary scientific observations seem to indicate that the global decline of the United States is a predictable function of the gradual, relative decline of its own system of public higher education (Allen 2009; Bauerlein 2009; Wagner 2008; Newfield 2008; Thompson 2008; Ehrenberg 2006; Goleman 2006). Indeed, the fate of all postindustrial societies and their institutional components is connected directly to the welfare of their academic systems (Colomy 1992; Bourdieu 1988; Clark 1983; Ben-David and Zloczower 1962). Science is not immune from these urgent societal matters (Nisbet 2009; Trefil 2008; Galama and Hosek 2008; Volti 2008; Byers 2007; Mooney 2005; Gross and Levitt 1994).

Academic systems consist of the social interactions connecting individuals, groups, social networks, organizations, institutions, and all other collectivities that generate a society’s most advanced expertise, especially in mathematics and other scientific fields (Clark 1983). They exist within larger social systems (Miller and Page 2007; Bar-Yam 1997; Carley 1995; Coleman 1990). These systems certify, legitimate, and supply leaders and employees for economic, political, media, criminal justice, educational, and scientific systems within the division of labor in society (Scott 2008; Bills 2006; Zimon 1991; Carroll and Hannan 2000; Durkheim 1964). At this juncture, relatively little is known scientifically about the complicated, multi-faceted impacts of these academic systems upon a global populace, as opposed to more ethnocentric and nationalistic administrative or policy matters (Byers 2007; Hedstrom 2005; Sawyer 2005). Generating this theoretical knowledge is basic science, a new kind of sociology that is fueled by a plethora of mathematical and computational models (Siegfried 2006; Penrose 2005; Wolfram 2002).

Social complexity is implicit in the mathematical properties and computational models that have yet to be discovered within these domains (Chavalarias and Cointet 2009; Hunt 2007). As French mathematician, Ivar Ekeland (1993, p. 121), has noted, “The fundamental property of dynamical systems is that they can only be viewed globally.” Yet, the vast majority of social scientific studies are based on statistical analyses of the local aspects of such dynamical systems. Of course, not all mathematical realities are subject to computational algorithms (Haddock 2007; Lindley 2006; Hewson 2003). A new kind of science of global academic systems is emerging as the twenty-first century ensues (Livio 2009; Weidlich and Haag 1983).