I first read Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series when I was in the sixth form. It was simply mind-blowing. Psychohistory was very convincing and fascinating to this (then) simple sixth former. What is not to like about a science for predicting the future?
In the Comparative History course I am doing, we learn about Theda Skocpol and Margaret Somers’ paper in 1980 “The uses of Comparative History in Macrosocial Inquiry”. The basic idea is that common causes lead to common consequences. They described macro-causal analysis
The logic involved in the use of comparative history for Macro-causal analysis resembles that of statistical analysis, which manipulates groups of cases to control sources of variation in order to make causal inferences when quantitative data are available about a large number of cases.
So, we went from sci-fi to academic work in only 30 years! I was all excited, until the professor pointed out that, when Skocpol wrote her States and Social Revolutions, she had three examples: the French revolution, the Russian revolution and the Chinese revolution. Three could hardly qualify as a large number.
1 response so far ↓
1 Toby // Oct 9, 2005 at 11:58 pm
Oh! I just happened to have read the same book in my hi-school days. My reading back then was the Chinese translation, but I am sure it was the same book… cause the Psychohistory concept is so interesting and seemingly logical.
I just love Isaac back then. Given those books were written before I was born, it’s so much better than that of Wisely. More important, most of Isaac’s stories are short.