Sociophysics: can we predict social and political behavior?

COURSE OUTLINE
SOCIOPHYSICS: CAN WE PREDICT
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL BEHAVIOR?
Professor: Serge GALAM
Academic Year 2015/2016 : Common core curriculum – Fall semester (IFCO 2320)
DESCRIPTION
For the first time ever in a social science institution, a series of 12 talks will introduce Sociophysics, a new
emerging field, which combines concepts and tools from the physics of disorder and collective phenomena in
inert mater, to build models whose aim is to describe certain aspects of our social and political behaviors.
Initiated more than 35 years ago, Sociophysics today is a flourishing field of international research at the
edge of the unknown. With Sociophysics, questions of free will, participative democracy, the spreading of
minority opinion, unexpected and brutal societal breakdowns, controversies, rumors, terrorism, war and
peace are all shed in a new and disturbing light, which in turn raises many basic questions about our current
view of policy making.
While equations will be illustrated and used as a basis to play with concepts, each one will be given a
detailed explanation that can be understood by the mathematically-reluctant, thus yielding a unique
opportunity to learn how physicists deal with discovering the hidden laws of nature, in the search for an
equivalent breakthrough in our understanding of human behavior.
The lectures will be unique and experimental during which participants will be contributing to a large-scale
experiment on the unexpected transmission of hard science knowledge to social sciences students. It will be
up to us to take on the challenge!
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COURSE OUTLINE
OBJECTIVES
Compétences
À développer
Recherche documentaire, y compris numérique
Lecture argumentée et capacité d’interprétation
Capacité de description
Maîtrise des formalismes mathématiques
x
Expression et capacité de convaincre, en français et en anglais
Aptitudes au raisonnement
Capacité d’analyse et de synthèse, dont le sens des ordres de
x
grandeur
Maîtrise des méthodes qualitatives et quantitatives
x
Sens du concret
x
Capacité à penser hors des frontières et à se décentrer
x
Capacité à travailler en groupe
Imagination créative
x
ASSESSMENT
Mid-term take-home paper (40%) and a final take-home paper (60%)
COURSE OUTLINE
Topic 1
Philosophical and ethical issues connected to THE question: “Do humans behave like atoms?”
What makes sense and what does not?
The emergence of a new discipline: the contemporary case of Sociophysics. The path has been neither easy
nor straightforward.
The old, recent, and present pasts versus possible futures.
Topic 2
Words, concepts, equations, theorems, approximations, experiments, statistics, reliability, conviction and
conviction beyond reasonable doubt: overlaps and differences.
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Physics and the physicist: the power of physics (and its weakness) with respect to the modeling of human
behavior.
Asimov (Foundations), the mathematician and the physicist.
Topic 3
The wonderful world of Mr. Ising.
How such a simple model can produce so much outstanding understanding of an infinite number of physical
puzzles , and hopefully tomorrow will help to solve fundamental social and political enigmas.
Topic 4
The magic world of collective phenomena in inert matter.
From boiling water through the appearance of superconductivity to the “possible” victory of the FN in 2017,
the same universal mechanisms at work.
Is the Arab spring a social implementation of boiling water?
Topic 5
The building up of a democratic dictatorship: from scratches to powerful machinery.
How to become an elected dictator?
Explaining the stability and sudden collapse of 20th century Eastern European communist parties from a
radically different perspective.
Predicting the scenario of an FN victory, explaining the 2002 precedent and envisioning the 2017 scenario.
Topic 6
From magnetism (in inert matter not of “Madame Vilma”) to understanding group decision-making.
Can Sociophysics become a predictive tool?
Surprising results on what is random and what is not in the dynamics of sensitive decision-making.
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The death penalty: no biased juries and ‘heads or tails’ decisions or playing on prejudices to ensure a prison
sentence?
Topic 7
The fundamental puzzle of the making of public opinion.
The surprising role of doubting and the effect of collective beliefs.
Rumors, innovations, social behaviors.
Conspiracy theories: the cases of 9/11 and the 2015 January Paris killings.
Topic 8
The unexpected influence of contrarian behavior.
Explaining the fifty/fifty vote, from the 2000 Bush / Gore election to the 2012 UMP presidency election.
Associated democratic danger and the need to invent new protocols of political governance.
Topic 9
The disturbing impact of stubbornness on the democratic balance of opinion dynamics.
Public debates driven by incomplete scientific data: global warming, GMOs (OGM), nanotechnologies and
the theory of evolution.
Is it necessary to lie to win a public debate?
Introducing the concept of political bubbles.
Topic 10
Behind the big data, the big set ups.
Controversies: a case study of the last decade’s abnormal death rate for bees.
Unmasking the lobbies acting behind the data.
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COURSE OUTLINE
Topic 11
Finance: behind the market there stands a human being.
Market efficiency and the rational formation of bubbles and crashes.
Topic 12
Terrorism and the role of passive supporters, a geometrical approach based on the so-called percolation
phenomenon.
Universal mechanisms at work in all forms of terrorism.
The impossibility of a military solution and the notion of social space connected to real space.
Identifying a “going to be a terrorist” beforehand.
READINGS
•
G. Vinogradova and S. Galam, « Global alliances effect in coalition forming », Eur. Phys. J. B (2014)
87: 266, 1-12
•
Delanoë and S. Galam, « Modeling a controversy in the press: The case of abnormal bee deaths »,
Physica A 402 (2014) 93-103
•
S. Galam, « The Drastic Outcomes from Voting Alliances in Three-Party Democratic Voting (1990 ->
2013) », Journal of Statistical Physics, 151 (2013) 46-68
•
S. Galam, Market Efficiency, Anticipation and the Formation of Bubbles-Crashes, Hyperion
International Journal of Econophysics & New Economy, Volume 5, Issue 2, (2012) 193-210
•
T. Bouzdine-Chameeva and S. Galam, « Word-of-mouth versus experts and reputation in the
individual dynamics of wine purchasing », Advances in Complex Systems 14 (2011) 871-885
•
S. Galam, « Public debates driven by incomplete scientific data: The cases of evolution theory,
global warming and H1N1 pandemic influenza », Physica A 389 (2010) 3619-3631
•
S. Galam, « From 2000 Bush-Gore to 2006 Italian elections: voting at fifty-fifty and the contrarian
effect », Quality and Quantity Journal 41 (2007) 579-589
•
S. Galam, « Heterogeneous beliefs, segregation, and extremism in the making of public opinions »,
Physical Review E 71, 046123 (2005) 1-5
•
S. Galam, « Sociophysics: a personal testimony », Physica A 336 (2004) 49-55
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COURSE OUTLINE
•
S. Galam, « Contrarian deterministic effect: the hung elections scenario », Physica A 333 (2004)
453-460
•
S. Galam, « Application of Statistical Physics to Politics» Physica A 274 (1999) 132-139
•
S. Galam, « La volonté générale est-elle manipulable », Décisions durables n°18, mars - avril (2014)
60 - 62
•
S. Galam, « La fin de l’homme libre », Interview Revue TANK N°4 (Printemps 2013) 19-21
•
S. Galam, « Mariage pour tous: le référendum n’est pas démocratique », Atlantico
(www.atlantico.fr), 31 janvier (2013)
•
S. Galam, « Connaissez-vous les contrariants socio-physiques, cette poignée d’individus qui ont fait
l’élection de JF Copé ? », Atlantico (www.atlantico.fr), 21 novembre (2012)
•
S. Galam, « Sans Europe, la paix disparaîtra, c'est physiquement prouvé ! », JOL press
(www.jolpress.com), 23 octobre (2012)
•
S. Galam, « Le débat est une machine à produire de l'extrémisme », Point de vue, Le Monde.fr | 13
avril (2011)
•
S. Galam, « Quand la science hésite, la communication décide », Constructif N°27, novembre
(2010)
•
S. Galam, « Pourquoi des élections si serrées ? », Le Monde, 20/09 (2006) 22
•
S. Galam, « Les mathématiques s’invitent dans le débat européen » par P. Lehir (interview), Le
Monde, 26/02 (2005) 23
•
S. Galam, « Terrorisme et percolation », Pour La Science 306 (2003) 90-93
•
S. Galam, « Les réformes sont-elles impossibles ? », Le Monde, 28/03 (2000) 18-19
•
S. Galam, « Crier, mais pourquoi », Libération du 17/04 (1998) 6
•
S. Galam, « Le dangereux seuil critique du FN », Le Monde, 30/05 (1997) 17
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