In sociology and social anthropology the term "functional analysis" is used not only in the mathematical sense, where a function expresses a correspondence between two variables such that for every value of the one there are one or more determinate values of the other, and the second, or dependent, variable is, in a less technical use of the term, said to be a function of the first. Sociologists, of course, like all scientists, are interested in establishing such dependencies. The term "functional analysis" in their work also has a special connotation analogous to the use of the notion of "function" in describing biological systems or such artifacts as are self-organizing systems—for example, a heat engine with a thermostat. Such a system can be considered as a unitary whole; it is differentiated into elements, and the function of the elements can be said to...