Margaret Mead, famed for her cultural studies, surprisingly played a key role in the birth of cybernetics (the science of communication and control in machines and living things) during the 1940s and 50s. How? Her research on communication and feedback loops in societies like Samoa caught the eye of cybernetics pioneers. They saw parallels between cultural practices and the control systems in machines!
Mead’s collaboration with her husband, Gregory Bateson, further strengthened this connection. Together, they explored feedback mechanisms in both cultures and biology. Mead’s insights helped cybernetics understand how communication works in social systems, just like feedback loops in machines. This interdisciplinary approach laid the groundwork for systems theory, impacting fields like psychology and sociology.