Scott Archer Boorman (born February 1, 1949) is a mathematical sociologist at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

Life

His father,

Howard L. Boorman Howard Lyon Boorman (b. 11 September 1920 Chicago d. 17 February 2008) was a United States Foreign Service Officer who after retirement became best known for organizing and editing the '' Biographical Dictionary of Republican China'' a standard r ...

, was a Foreign Service Officer in

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

, China, and he was born there as Chinese Communists troops entered the city. He received no formal education before enrolling at

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

, and had largely completed work on his book, ''The Protracted Game'', which was published in 1971. He earned his B.A. in Applied Mathematics, and was a

Harvard Junior Fellow The Society of Fellows is a group of scholars selected at the beginnings of their careers by Harvard University for their potential to advance academic wisdom, upon whom are bestowed distinctive opportunities to foster their individual and intell ...

. He received his Ph.D. in

Sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...

from Harvard University and was appointed to a full professorship at Penn before moving to Yale. He is also a graduate of

Yale Law School Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by '' U.S. News & Worl ...

Works

While still a teenager, Boorman wrote ''The Protracted Game : A Wei-Ch'i Interpretation of Maoist Revolutionary Strategy

(1969), an analysis of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. He shows that the U.S. thought it was playing

Chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

, while in fact the game was Wei-Ch'i (also known as Go). He systematically explores the similarity between the military strategies of Chinese Communist insurgency and the Chinese board game wei-ch’i, in contrast to parallel U.S. analyses of the same events. Boorman also argues that wei-chi's analysis of a strategic system presents a more sophisticated and flexible form of game theory than the traditional western models of strategic choice. His book, ''Genetics of Altruism'' (1980) uses mathematical population genetics to analyze the development of sociality and altruism through three modes of selection: group, kin and reciprocity.

Notes

External links

Faculty website at Yale

List of publication
* http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20050605_1.htm -(Quotes a

James Pinkerton James "Jim" P. Pinkerton (born March 11, 1958) is an American columnist, author, and political analyst. Career A graduate of Evanston Township High School (1975) and Stanford University (1980), he served on the White House staff under both Ronal ...

editorial invoking ''The Protracted Game'') American sociologists Yale Law School alumni 1949 births Living people Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Yale University faculty {{US-sociologist-stub