Well, SOCNET (the listserv for researchers in social networks and complexity), had a number of things to say about this NYT article. Barry Wellman sent the following to the New York Times:
Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 11:02:33 -0500
From: Barry Wellman
To: new york times letters
Cc: duncan watts
Subject: Erroneous facts
Emily Eakin’s story Jan 25 story (“Connect, They Say, Only Connect”) makes a huge factual mistake by saying that network analysis as a discipline only started when physicists discovered it in the late 1990s. In reality, it’s been going strong since the 1960s, with a substantial body of theory, method and substance. There are three journals [Social Networks Connections - both published since the 1970s; and the Journal of Social Structure], an annual international and interdisciplinary conference (happening for about the 30th time next month), and an international society with about 500 members (the International Network for Social Network Analysis, which I founded in 1977). It’s great that physicists (and the NY Times) are joining an already flourishing party
Barry
Other community members hastened to mention the development of sociograms in 1930 and research going back to 1908.
