Looking at questions through the algorithmic lens (i.e. from an algorithmic or complexity point of view) has become useful in disciplines outside of the 'standard domain' of computer science. In particular CS has made an impact on biology through computational biology, on physics through quantum information processing, and AI and complexity theory seem to regularly interact with neuroscience. The natural sciences seem relatively comfortable with TCS.Thus, my question is in regard to the impact of TCS on the social sciences.What novel and important insights into the social sciences has TCS provided?I am vaguely aware of the impact of algorithmic thinking on economics (through game theory). In fact algorithmic game theory is now a part of the 'standard domain' of TCS, so lets exclude AGT answers unless they specifically altered existing theories in the social sciences. Another example I recall is from linguistics in the learnability vs. innateness of grammar (i.e. poverty of the stimulus) debate. Gold's theorem about the unlearnability of context free grammars provided a strong argument for innate-ness and helped convince some skeptics (I am not sure if this is still valid, since SCFG seem to be learnable). I am more interested in examples of this type, where TCS thinking helped change or shape existing theories in the social sciences.References to books/surveys are appreciated.
Algorithmic lens in the social sciences
reference request;soft question;big picture;social sciences;algorithmic lens
Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning About a Highly Connected World, by Easley and Kleinberg probably should be mentioned here. It is rather elementary, but gives a wide selection of social sciences topics that have been considered from a CS point of view and provides a lot of references. Someone with more experience in the field can perhaps tell us how close the book is to the current state of the art in the field?As a more particular answer, with the proliferation of various social networking sites, computer science has become quite relevant in analysing the huge social network data sets from such sites.