Yet, this is not to say that we simply live in a larger system than we imagined. DiZerega also relates them to the ideas of post-modernity, ecology, and Eastern mysticism, and derives a theoretical basis for a Green politics. Both R. J. Rummel and Peggy Ann James take a substantially different approach. Rummel, whose undergraduate training was as a physicist, invented a field theory, along with an improved form of factor analysis, for a series of highly regarded studies of the causes of international conflict during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. He tends to distance himself from the more intuitive, metaphorical, and mystical interpretations of quantum, and attempts to ground his perspective in a sophisticated positivistic and mathematical base.
Many physicists do the same.
Similarly, Peggy Ann James is interested in the use of a quantum perspective for the modeling of entropy in systems. Auguste Comte, who of course must be viewed as the granddaddy of the entire social physics perspective, also gets some positivistic licks in at the end of this imaginary conversation. However, the article that will have everyone talking is by Laurence Tribe, the distinguished professor of law at Harvard Law School. Indeed the article originally appeared in the Harvard Law Review in 1989 . While useful in its own right, it does not add much to the overall discussion.