Alternate Realities World Generator, v0.01a

Program and Documentation by Carter Butts

Annoying Legal Technicalities

Disclaimer

No warranties, expressed or implied, are provided for the included software. In no event will the author be liable for any special, consequential, indirect, or similar damages, including any lost profits or lost data, arising out of the use of this software. Any use of the included software constitutes acceptance of these terms.

Copyright

Alternate Realities is Copyright 1996 by Carter Butts, Karim Nassar, and Brian Rayburn. The Alternate Realities World Generator (ARWG) and all related documentation and software is Copyright 1997 by Carter Butts.

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this document and any included software provided that this document and the attendant copyright and permission notice are preserved on all copies.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this document and any included software under the conditions for verbatim copies above, provided a notice clearly stating that the document and/or software is a modified version is also included in the modified document and/or software.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this document and/or software into another language, under the conditions specified above for modified versions.

All output files resulting from the use of the Alternate Realities World Generator are considered to be the property of the software user.

Permission is granted to convert this document and/or software into another media under the conditions specified above for modified versions provided the requirement to acknowledge the source document is fulfilled by the inclusion of an obvious reference to the source document in the new media. Where there is any doubt as to what constitutes "obvious" or "clearly stating," the copyright owner reserves the right to decide. All other rights reserved.

Alternate Realities Citation Statement

Author: Carter Butts

Type: Supporting Product

Parents: [PRG] Alternate Realities Primary Reality Guide (Carter Butts, Karim Nassar, and Brian Rayburn)

AR Citation Format: [SP] Alternate Realities World Generator, v0.01a (Carter Butts)

Short Description: An application which produces game world histories and snapshots in AR CDO format. NOTE: This is an alpha level document, and as such is likely to contain errors and omissions.

Introduction

The Alternate Realities World Generator is one component of the Alternate Realities societal description system. This system is intended to support the efforts of players, GMs, and Reality Designers by providing a common language and tool kit for the creation and description of game worlds. Although the World Generator, along with the societal description system, is designed for use with Alternate Realities, both may be employed in a wide variety of role playing and speculative fiction contexts.

Usage

At the moment, using ARWG is easy -- once it has been compiled. This is, in part, due to the fact that the current version supports relatively few command line perameters. Future revisions are expected to allow more subtle control over simulation variables than does the present implementation.

Compilation

(If you are using a precompiled binary, feel free to ignore this section.)

ARWG is written in more-or-less ANSI C. Originally put together in an ancient version of Microsoft QuickC, it has hopefully been tested on other compilers (like GCC, for instance) by the time you read this. Because the initial author (yours truly) isn't the world's greatest programmer, no guarantees are made as to the portability, efficiency, or sanity of the source code. On the other hand, I have tried to document the ARWG source, and my lack of clever tricks should make extensions/corrections relatively easy. Maybe.

In any case, all the ARWG code is currently contained in the arwg.c file, making compilation reasonably facile. You'll need to link in the standard math libraries, and you may wish to turn on optimizations (it can use them, believe me ;-)), but otherwise no special flags should be needed. If the program won't run properly, check your stack size; ARWG sucks RAM in a significant way. Other things you might want to consider when compiling are the many customizations which can only be made at compile-time (sorry). These include the number of societies, thresholds for history reporting, default language settings, etc. No changes have to be made in order for the World Generator to work, but it may be desirable to tinker with the #define's for particular purposes....

Command Line

ARWG is designed to be used entirely from the command line, and uses a reasonably persnickety calling format. The program will, however, remind you of its expectations if they are grossly violated, so feel free to call it without perameters if you forget how it works.

Format: arwg imean ivar syear eyear snapint prefix

arwg
The program itself (shock!).
imean
This is the mean value of the societies' initial attributes. Any float from -infinity to infinity (har har) is valid, but more reasonable values are recommended.
ivar
A float which can range from 0.0 to infinity, ivar sets the variance of the distribution from which the societies' initial attributes are drawn. Since this distribution is approximately normal, you should expect that around 60% or so of initial attributes values will lie within the interval [imean-ivar,imean+ivar]. Upping the NORM constant at compile time should result in a tighter approximation to the normal curve.
syear
This is the number of the starting year for the simulation. Year numbers are recorded in the history log, and are used in producing snapshots, but have no substantive effect on the simulation.
eyear
This is the number of the ending year for the simulation. As above, note that the year numbers are cosmetic, but the difference syear-eyear will determine the length of virtual time covered by the simulator.
snapint
On the first year, and every snapint years later, the World Generator will record a "snapshot" file, containing the full state of the system. Using the snapint variable in conjunction with syear and eyear will allow for a more detailed picture of societal evolution; keep in mind, however, that there is a limit of 26^3 snapshot files. Sorry.
prefix
This string is used as the prefix for all HTML files produced by the world generator. On MSDOS systems, this must be kept to 5 characters or less, due to the 8 character filename limitation (not my fault). File systems supporting long filenames don't share this limitation, but bear in mind that the program has some internal limits (which can be changed by editing the declarations, if you are really dead set on it) -- it is not recommended that you exceed 22 characters for the file name prefix.

Output Files

The World Generator produces a number of output files, all in reasonably well-formatted HTML. To make life simple for the user, these files are already linked via a table of contents; to view them, simply pull up the ToC file in your favorite browser. For the curious, however, is here included a listing, with brief descriptions, of the files produced by ARWG.

Table of Contents - (prefix)toc.htm
The table of contents file provides a list of links to all other files produced by a single execution.
History Log - (prefix)his.htm
The history log is, possibly, the most important of the ARWG output files. This file contains a year-by-year account of important events taking place throughout the course of the simulation. Also, for convenience, a link at the bottom of the file allows users to return to the ToC even if they are too brain-dead to use the "back" button on their browsers!
Snapshots - (prefix)xxx.htm
Snapshot files provide a detailed look at the state of the simulation for a particular year. Included within each file are the complete interaction matrices (in tables) for the game world, along with all attributes of each society (including niceties such as a list of major cities). Snapshots are incremented alphabetically (aaa, aab, aac, etc.), and are linked to and from the ToC file.

Note that all of the above files end with the ".htm" extension. This is due to the 3 character suffix limitation encountered on MSDOS systems. If your browser persists in interpreting these files as raw text, check that "htm" is a valid HTML type extension in your mime.types file. If you are distributing these files via an HTTP server, you may need to check the server's mime.types file as well; it may be necessary to restart the server to make such changes effective (turn to your server documentation for more information).

(Alternately, of course, you could rename the files to *.html, or make compile-time modifications to ARWG.)

Application and Interpretation

The Alternate Realities World Generator is designed to plausibly simulate the evolution of a group of societies over time.

Uses

The World Generator lends itself to a variety of uses. A few of these are here mentioned, along with some ideas for getting the most out of ARWG.

Reality Design
The task of the Reality Designer is not an enviable one; in addition to detailing the special features of his or her game world, the designer must often give an in-depth account of its history and major cultures. To help simplify this task, the World Generator may be employed to produce histories and snapshots which can serve as the background for a complete gaming environment. In order to accomplish this, it is recommended that multiple executions of the software be employed until a history with the desired properties is obtained (this is fiction, after all). The history log may then be edited until it constitutes a form appropriate to the Reality Guide in composition, and it and the snapshots can be included in the finished product.
Multi-World Campaigns
A favorite type of campaign for many players is the "many worlds" scenario, in which players move between alternate "dimensions," each with its own history and physical properties. Unfortunately, this sort of game environment places a heavy burden on the erstwhile GM, who is called upon to produce a wide array of game worlds (often on very short notice). The World Generator can alleviate this difficulty by enabling the GM to create a large number of "skeleton" worlds in advance with the exertion of minimal effort. These can then be stored and retrieved when needed to support the needs of the GM.
Story Seeds
A somewhat more exotic use for ARWG lies not in the area of role playing per se, but in the regime of fictional composition. World Generator output can be used to seed stories by providing a ready-made set of societies and historical events which can be fleshed out and given life in the hands of the storyteller. While the idea of using a computer to "assist" in the creation of a work of fiction is certainly controversial, tools such as ARWG may open up new opportunities for authors willing to accept the challenges.

Concept: Cultural Description Objects

Cultural Description Objects (CDOs) are a class of objects which can serve as a shorthand for GMs and reality designers who need a standard way to refer to societies in the game environment. Each society has a CDO whose attributes define its properties; it may also be thought of as having subcultural children who inherit properties from their cultural parent. While the CDO is primarily a tool for quickly encoding cultural information, it has other uses as well: certain CDO attributes may affect players in concrete ways, and, ultimately, rules may even be devised for allowing CDOs to act as "characters" themselves!

CDO Attributes

Like other AR objects, CDOs have attributes. Furthermore, CDO attributes are defined in Level 0, Level 1, etc., terms, just like player attributes. For information regarding the difference between higher and lower level attributes, readers are referred to the section on AR characters included with the Alternate Realities Primary Reality Guide.

Level 0
Cultural
Modernity
A wide array of sociologists of the 19th and 20th centuries identified a fundamental process of change which brought cultures from their "primitive" beginnings to a state known as "modernity." While this has proven to be less than effective as a scientific principle, the idea of modernity as a dimension of cultural description holds up well enough (and is easy enough to grasp) to serve as a CDO attribute. With this in mind, modernity should be thought of as an abstract agglomeration of traits such as rationalization, institutionalization, individualization, etc. These are broken down in greater detail in the Level 1 cultural attributes, which are based on the five pattern variables of Talcott Parsons' AGIL scheme.
Scientific
Scientific Sophistication
"Science" being here defined as the whole body of knowledge concerning the physical world, its history, and its laws, "scientific sophistication" gives an overall index of the degree to which a particular culture has developed and integrated an understanding of its environment.
Technological
Technological Capability
Where science represents knowledge concerning the universe of observables, technology reflects mastery over the same. While there is some linkage between scientific and technological capabilities, this connection is extremely weak (particularly at low levels); it is possible, generally speaking, to have excellent technological expertise without great scientific understanding. "Technological capability," then,. reflects the development of this expertise and its integration with the larger social structure.
Economic
Economic Development
There are a nearly infinite number of ways to allocate scarce resources in a society; economic development refers to the complexity, efficiency, and overall sophistication of the systems which perform this role.
Political
Political Intensity
Power can be dealt with in many ways, and the allocation and organization of overt power in society is critical to the nature of life within it. "Political intensity", as it were, is an overall measure of the complexity, sophistication, and force with which people in a culture handle questions of control.
Level 1
Cultural
Mobility
Mobility indicates the degree to which one's social standing may be altered (for better or for worse) by individual choices and/or acts of fate. In highly stratified societies (such as aristocracies), mobility is highly restricted; paradoxically, this is also true of extremely "flat" societies (such as certain tribal groupings) simply because there is so little hierarchy in which to move! Societies with high levels of mobility, then, must have well-developed, yet flexible, hierarchies; high levels of mobility contribute to modernity.
Universality
Universality is an overall cultural predisposition towards generic, abstract means of dealing with (especially social) reality. Societies which are highly universal, for instance, tend to argue over "precedents," "principles," and the like; highly particularistic societies, by contrast, are likely to treat events as separate, incomparable occurrences. As one would expect, universality is considered to be a "modern" trait.
Mean Role Specificity
In some societies, roles are very broadly defined; a tribal chief, for instance, may wield religious, political, economic, and military power with equal aplomb. Other cultures, however, tend to have roles which are far more specific: a corporate accountant may have significant economic power (at least within a particular organization) but is unlikely to be able to raise an army. This difference, between a notion of roles as being all-encompassing and diffuse and a concept of roles as narrow and constrained by circumstances, is expressed as mean role specificity. Increasing role specificity is considered to be typical of modernity.
Affective Neutrality
Different cultures deal with affect (the behavioral expression of one's internal emotional state) in markedly different ways: highly affective societies respect (and even demand) open displays of emotion, while more affectively neutral ones require that one's own feelings be suppressed in public settings. A famous criterion of modernization is a shift towards affective neutrality.
Individualism
Most societies evince some tension between the idea of the individual as an important, independent entity, and the notion of the group as being the pre-eminent concern. Highly collectivistic societies, for instance, do not consider the individual to be a privileged unit with its own special rights. Individualistic societies, by contrast, may hold individual welfare and initiative above any group consideration. In general, a trend towards individualism is considered to be an element of modernity.
Scientific
Median Education Level
The median education level of the society refers to, in essence, the level of knowledge which an "average" person would have. This knowledge does not necessarily have to be acquired through formal study, nor need it be credentialed in any way. It is, for instance, possible to have a society with a very high median education level in which few individuals have actually attended educational institutions, or (just as likely!) one may have a society in which individuals spend years and years attaining "degrees" without learning much of anything.

Note: The median education level is not necessarily identical to the mean education level; the latter is not a Level 1 CDO attribute.

Educational Legitimacy
The educational legitimacy of a society reflects the degree to which members of the society are willing to defer to the authority of knowledge as it is understood by the group in question. This authority may be metered by specific credentials (such as, in our culture, the Ph.D.), or may be demonstrated in some other manner (performance in a debate, for instance, as on USENET). However it may be described, a culture with low educational legitimacy will tend to ignore the recommendations of its learned members, and a culture with high educational legitimacy will hang on their every word.
Concentration of Education
In statistical terms, this is related to the third moment, or skew, of the distribution of education in society. In plain English, the concentration of education gives information regarding how individuals may deviate from the mean education level. At low levels of concentration, few persons are substantially more educated than anyone else. At high levels, by contrast, a small number of people may have education levels far above the mean value for the population at large. (Concentration is thus related to the second moment, or variance, of the distribution as well; without variance, there can be no asymmetry (skewness), and both are required for the definition of concentration to be satisfied.) Taken together, the median education level and the concentration of education present a reasonably good picture of the distribution of knowledge within a society.
Educational Scope
In some societies, knowledge regarding "the way things are" is considered to be very remote from the ordinary tasks of day-to-day existence. In others, however, one is expected to have a working knowledge of the nature of things, and to integrate this knowledge with one's actions. Societies of the first type have a very narrow (or low) educational scope, while those of the second have a very wide (or high) level of scope. Generally speaking, the greater the educational scope of a society, the more knowledge is demanded of individuals, and the more often these demands are made.
Scientific Dynamism
Scientific dynamism is, in a nutshell, the speed at which a society's understanding of the observable universe is increasing. Societies with high rates of scientific dynamism (say, the US during the period from 1860-1880) face a rapidly evolving knowledge base, while those with relatively low rates (perhaps Japan from 1600-1700) tend to be relatively static.
Technological
Median Technology Level
The median technology level of a society is, generally, the sophistication of the technology which is accessible to the "average" person. While the range of technologies available may vary greatly (as in many third world countries), the median technology level indicates that which more or less ordinary people are likely to use.
Technological Legitimacy
The legitimacy of technology in a society represents the degree to which technological solutions (and the perspectives of those who proffer them) are viewed as authoritative. Societies with low levels of technological legitimacy may view new devices with suspicion, or even hostility; those in which technology is highly legitimate, however, may see innovation as the answer to each and every problem! (Note that this refers to technological know-how, not human knowledge per se. The two are not identical.)
Concentration of Technology
As with concentration of education, concentration of technology provides an index of the degree to which certain individuals may deviate from the median. In societies with a high degree of technological concentration, this means that a small number of persons have access to the vast majority of the most sophisticated technologies available, while the "little people" live in a comparatively primitive state. Societies with low concentrations are, by contrast, relatively homogeneous: almost all members have access to the same tools.
Scope of Technology
The scope of technology in a society is the degree to which explicitly "technological" issues dominate life. In societies where technological expertise is a prerequisite for success, where choices between technologies can shape lifestyles, etc., technology has a very wide scope. This is very different from narrow scope societies, in which technological issues are thought of as being isolated from day to day life (when they are thought of at all!).
Technological Dynamism
Technological dynamism describes the degree of technological "progress" in society at large. Highly dynamic societies may face "instant obsolescence," massive and continuous product innovations, and shifting skill sets, while persons in less dynamic societies may pass the same tools and techniques down through the generations.
Economic
Median Wealth
The median wealth of a society is, as one would expect, the median access to material goods (including food, transportation, shelter, etc.). Obviously, not everyone in most societies lives at the median wealth level!
Legitimacy of Economic Behavior
Societies vary widely in how they view explicitly economic behavior: some hold any task as sacred if it is undertaken for purposes of profit, while others eschew any behavior which is explicitly economic in nature. When economic behavior is highly legitimate, the prerogatives and perspectives of economic actors (such as business folk) may be privileged above others.
Concentration of Wealth
It is not at all atypical to find significant disparities of wealth within the same society...such societies are said to exhibit high levels of concentration of wealth. This attribute expresses the degree to which some persons deviate from the median wealth level, and may vary widely from society to society (and from time to time).
Organizational Scope
Organizational scope expresses the degree to which economic institutions and, more generally, the paradigm of explicitly economic behavior penetrates the daily life of the average person. When organizational scope is high, persons are expected to structure their lives around economic (and possibly corporate) prerogatives, while a low organizational scope is often characterized by an overtly lackadaisical attitude towards production.
Economic Dynamism
While less obvious than scientific or technological dynamism, economic dynamism is no less an important cultural attribute. Economic dynamism refers to the rate of change in the economic and institutional arrangement of society. When this attribute is high, the structures of production, trade, and consumption are in constant flux, with new organizational forms and techniques displacing the old; low levels of economic dynamism characterize stable (possibly regimented) societies in which the rhythms of buying and selling have gone on unchanged for many years.
Political
Median Power
The median power level provides an index of the ability of the average person to control the circumstances under which he or she lives. The more regimented the society, the lower the median power level...this regimentation may be overt and coercive, or subtle and inductive. Note that it is possible to have cultures with very low median power attributes which are homogeneous (if, for instance, all members were bound to a certain, highly restrictive creed).
Political Legitimacy
Political legitimacy describes the credibility and authority of political power. In societies with high levels of political legitimacy, solutions based on "policy" are likely to be respected, along with anything else seen as deriving from the supposed foundation of the current system (be it the divine right of kings, the consent of the people, natural law, or human freedom). Cultures with low levels of political legitimacy may well be unstable (though they don't have to be); in any case, the average person will have little respect for whatever dictates the system provides.
Concentration of Power
Societies which exhibit high levels of concentration with respect to power are sharply divided into the rulers and the governed. Those with extremely low levels of concentration, however, (such as anarchies) allow each person to be his or her own ruler. This will, nonetheless, still interact with the median power level: homogenous societies with low median power levels will seem "paralyzed," while those with very high power levels (small direct democracies, perhaps) may be subject to nearly schizophrenic policy shifts.
Political Scope
The political scope of a society determines the degree to which explicit considerations of power and authority enter into daily life. In extremely politicized societies, even small actions may have appreciable consequences and intrigues abound. Societies with lower levels of political scope may be less power-focused -- or persons in them may not be able to change anything!
Political Dynamism
Like economic dynamism, political dynamism is concerned with the degree to which a society is changing. Societies with high levels of political dynamism exhibit massive power shifts (such as coups or revolutions) while those which are less dynamic may remain politically static for long periods of time.

Concept: Interaction Matrices

One important determinant of societal evolution can be found in the pattern of relations between societies. Unfortunately, these patterns can be extremely complex (consisting of (# relations)*(# societies)^2 elements); to simplify this melange of data, we use structures known as interaction matrices. An interaction matrix is composed of the set of ordered pairs A,B expressing the strength of tie sent from society A to society B. The interpretation of this tie strength depends on the relation being examined; different relations may differ in numerous respects, including in the range of admissible cell values. A complete description of the matrices used by ARWG is given below.

Matrix Types

A few quick notes about the World Generator matrices: all values are expressed as doubles, and no reflexive ties (A to A) are considered meaningful. The latter may be changed in future revisions of the simulation, but until then the entries on the diagonals of the interaction matrixes should be ignored. In the following discussion, the syntax A to B or A,B indicates the cell at row A, column B.

Spatial Proximity
One significant influence on societal interaction is space: societies which are far apart are less likely to strongly influence one another than societies which are close together. To capture this idea, we include a spatial proximity matrix, whose entries express (on a 0 to 1 scale) the difficulty in reaching each society from each other society. Because proximity is based on unchangeable physical space, it is not updated as are the other interaction matrices; on the other hand, the significance of proximity for attenuating influence does change with median technology level -- as technology becomes more advanced, proximity matters less.
Trade
An important aspect of the game world is the set of trade relationships between societies. As trade affects not only the economic, but also the social, cultural, and political environment, wise GMs will take trade relationships seriously in seeking to accurately depict the game world. The trade matrix describes these relations by expressing (on a 0 to 1 scale) the value of trade with B for A (for the cell A,B); these values are not always symmetric. It will be noted that, at present, there is no way for trade to have a negative value. This relies on the somewhat controversial assumption that trade, per se, consists of exchanges which are mutually (though possibly asymmetrically) "desirable" on the societal level. The negative relations described by, say, world systems theory, then, would show up in ARWG output as positive trade relations linked with negative political or social relations. In the opinion of the author, this is more consistent with a resource dependency perspective on exchange (that exchanges are needed, even if they are leveraged in some way), but this might change in the future if a better rationale comes along.
Socio-cultural Influence
Many times throughout history, we have seen certain (usually powerful) societies exert significant cultural pressure on their neighbors. The influence of China on eastern Asia, for instance, or of the modern US on eastern Europe, have had cultural as well as political ramifications. To capture this idea, the World Generator incorporates an asymmetric socio-cultural influence matrix, which expresses the degree of influence of A on B with a number from -1 to 1. Negative influence values indicate a sort of "cultural antipathy": the recipient of the tie is influenced away from the sender! Positive values, by contrast, imply a diffusion of culture and values from the sender to the receiver. Strong socio-cultural ties can form the basis of other forms of cooperation (trade and political, for instance), and tend to create homogeneous blocks. Strongly negative ties, on the other hand, may precipitate a breakdown of trade and a movement towards political hostilities.
Political Interaction
The final relation in our current set is likely to be familiar to most users: political interaction. This asymmetric matrix contains values which map the political attitude of A towards B onto a range from -1 to 1. Negative values of this relation, obviously, indicate attitudes ranging from mild hostility to total war; positive values, by contrast, express varying degrees of alliance.

Suggestions and Cautions

Although it is naturally hoped that use of the World Generator will need no further explanation, I'm not that out of touch with reality. Given that this version is particularly rough around the edges both in terms of documentation and implementation, I shall attempt to make amends by presenting a few suggestions - and some cautions - which will hopefully aid in the use and enjoyment of this product.

Known Bugs

Yes, Virginia, there are bugs in this program. Lots of 'em. This is why we call it "alpha" ware...ah well. Please feel free to look for cures to these, and to send new ones my way...

Handy Hints

With the above in mind, here are a few hints on getting ARWG to do your bidding:

References to Additional Sources of Information

Although this program is intended as a support for role playing activities, it has been inspired by scholarly work in a number of fields. Players and GMs who are interested in extending the Alternate Realities social description system (or who simply desire more information regarding the underlying rationale of the World Generator) are encouraged to turn to the following sources:

Alternate Realities
Butts, Carter, Nassar, Karim, and Rayburn, Brian. (1996) The Alternate Realities Primary Reality Guide, v1.0.
The Alternate Realities mailing list (ar-list@delfax.net)
The Alternate Realities web site (http://www.etymon.org/AR)
Computational Social Theory
Carley, Kathleen, and Prietula, Michael (eds.). (1994) Computational Organization Theory. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Hillsdale, NJ.
Journal of Mathematical Sociology (Journal)
Diffusion Theory
Burt, Ronald. (1987) "Social Contagion and Innovation: Cohesion versus Structural Equivalence." American Journal of Sociology, 92, 1287-1335.
Galaskiewicz, Joseph, and Burt, Ronald. (1991) "Interorganization Contagion in Corporate Philanthropy." Administrative Science Quarterly, 36, 88-105.
Homophily Theory
Carley, Kathleen. (1991) "A Theory of Group Stability." American Sociological Review, 56, 331-354.
Collins, Randall. (1988) Theoretical Sociology. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: Orlando, Fl.
Friedkin, N.E. (1984) "Structural Cohesion and Equivalence Explanations of Social Homogeneity." Sociological Methods and Research, 12, 235-261.
Industrial Organization
Scherer, F.M. and Ross, David. (1990) Industrial Market Structure and Economic Performance. Houghton Mifflin: Boston.
Tirole, Jean. (1992) The Theory of Industrial Organization. MIT Press: Cambridge, Mass.
Social Network Analysis
Wasserman, Stanley, and Faust, Katherine. (1994) Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
Scott, John. (1991) Social Network Analysis: A Handbook. Sage Publications: London.
Social Networks (Journal)
Statistical Methods
DeGroot, Morris. (1989) Probability and Statistics, second edition. Addison-Wesley: Reading, Mass.
Structural/Functional Analysis
Parsons, Talcott. (1951) The Social System. Free Press: Glencoe, Il.
Collins, Randall. (1988) Theoretical Sociology. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: Orlando, Fl.
Merton, Robert K. (1968) Social Theory and Social Structure. Free Press: Glencoe, Il.

Carter Butts, ctb@andrew.cmu.edu