The Complex Alternative: Complexity Scientists on the COVID-19 Pandemic
The Complex Alternative: Complexity Scientists on the COVID-19 Pandemic
COVID-19 is the virus that proved the fragility of the world. It took only the simplest form of life to shake the connectivity and dependency of society. This book is a real-time record and recommendation from a community of complexity scientists reacting to the pandemic. Through nontechnical articles, interviews, and discussions spanning the early days of the pandemic through the fall of 2021, researchers seek ways to stay responsive to complexity when every force conspires toward simplicity. The Complex Alternative encompasses immunology, epidemiology, psychology, inequality, and collapse. It is an effort to preserve perspective at a time when partiality seeks dominion.
Edited by David C. Krakauer and Geoffrey West, this book features the thoughts of more than sixty members of the Santa Fe Institute’s research community on the future of complexity science and the broader significance of science in the twenty-first century.
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Structure of The Complex Alternative
Part One: Transmissions
These chapters will include the Santa Fe Institute’s original Transmission essays paired with new reflections by many of the original authors and transcripts from the Transmission series of the Complexity podcast.
Part Two: Interviews & Essays
These chapters include faculty-contributed essays and opinion pieces covering the pandemic, plus podcast interviews with members of the SFI community who were working on the front lines of the pandemic in the spring of 2020.
Part Three: The Complexity of Crisis
These chapters offer transcriptions from the Applied Complexity Network Symposium of fall 2020, paired with essays from speakers at the symposium exploring questions raised during the meeting in greater depth.
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Table of Contents
Introduction: The Complex Alternative, David Krakauer & Geoffrey West
Part One: Transmissions
BATCH 1: RIGOROUS UNCERTAINTY: SCIENCE DURING COVID-19
T-000: Citizen-Based Medicine, David Krakauer
T-001: Complex Crises & the Inevitability of Ethically Loaded Decisions, David Kinney
T-002: Reducing Conflicting Advice on Allowable Group Size, John Harte
T-003: Modeling the Effect of Social-Distancing Measures in the COVID-19 Pandemic, Luu Hoang Duc & Jürgen Jost
T-004: Thinking Out of Equilibrium, Simon DeDeo
P-001: Complexity Podcast Transmission Series Ep. 1, David Krakauer & Michael Garfield
BATCH 2: COVID-19 & COMPLEX TIME IN BIOLOGY & ECONOMICS
T-005: The Need for Disease Models which Capture Key Complexities of Transmissions, Andrew Dobson
T-006: Using Social Media Data to Detect Signatures of Global Crises, Miguel Fuentes
T-007: How to Reduce COVID-19 Mortality while Easing Economic Decline, Danielle Allen, E. Glen Weyl & Rajiv Sethi
T-008: The Importance of Timing in Restrictive Confinement, Michael Hochberg
T-009: How the Analogies We Live By Shape Our Thoughts, Melanie Mitchell
P-002: Complexity Podcast Transmission Series Ep. 2, David Krakauer & Michael Garfield
BATCH 3: ON CORONAVIRUS, CRISIS & CREATIVE OPPORTUNITY
T-010: Investment Strategies in Times of Crisis, William H. (Bill) Miller III
T-011: A Complex-Systems Perspective of Viruses, Santiago F. Elena
T-012: How Every Crisis is an Opportunity, Manfred D. Laubichler
T-013: Opportunities for Science Communicators, Mirta Galesic & Henrik Olsson
T-014: On Not Letting a Crisis Go to Waste, Doug Erwin
P-003: Complexity Podcast Transmission Series Ep. 3, David Krakauer & Michael Garfield
BATCH 4: RETHINKING OUR ASSUMPTIONS DURING THE COVID-19 CRISIS
T-015: Federalism in the Time of Pandemic, Anthony Eagan
T-016: The Future of Education, Carrie Cowan
T-017: Privacy Concerns that Arise with the Pandemic, Stephanie Forrest
T-018: Quantitative Ways to Consider the Economic Impact of COVID-19, Sidney Redner
T-019: Statistical Tools for Making Pandemic Predictions, David Wolpert
P-004: Complexity Podcast Transmission Series Ep. 4, David Krakauer & Michael Garfield
BATCH 5: EMBRACING COMPLEXITY FOR SYSTEMIC INTERVENTIONS
T-020: COVID Spiraling Frailty Syndrome, John W. Krakauer & Michelle C. Carlson
T-021: What History Can Teach Us about Resilience, Stefani Crabtree
T-022: The Informational Pitfalls of Selective Testing, Van Savage
T-023: Making Good Decisions under Uncertainty, David Tuckett, Lenny Smith, Gerd Gigerenzer & Jürgen Jost
T-024: The Heavy Tail of Outbreaks, Cristopher Moore
P-005: Complexity Podcast Transmission Series Ep. 5, David Krakauer & Michael Garfield
BATCH 6: EXPONENTIALS, ECONOMICS & ECOLOGY
T-025: Understanding Cities to Respond to Pandemics, Christopher P. Kempes & Geoffrey West
T-026: Mechanism Design for the Market, Eric Maskin
T-027: Studying Wildlife in Empty Cities, Pamela Yeh & Ian MacGregor-Fors
T-028: Exponential Growth Processes, Sidney Redner
T-029: SARS-CoV-2 & Landauer’s Bound, David Wolpert
P-006: Complexity Podcast Transmission Series Ep. 6, David Krakauer & Michael Garfield
BATCH 7: BETTER SCIENTIFIC MODELING FOR ECOLOGICAL & SOCIAL JUSTICE
T-030: Out-Evolving COVID-19, David Krakauer & Dan Rockmore
T-031: Models that Protect the Vulnerable, Melanie Moses & Kathy Powers
T-032: The Noisy Equilibrium of Disease Containment & Economic Pain, Jon Machta
T-033: How Pandemics Rapidly Reshape the Evolutionary & Ecological Landscape, Brian Enquist
P-007: Complexity Podcast Transmission Series Ep. 7, David Krakauer & Michael Garfield
BATCH 8: THE PANDEMIC & ITS AFTERMATH
T-034: Can Schools Open and Stay Open? Michael Lachmann & Spencer Fox
T-035: Info-Metrics for Modeling & Inference with Complex & Uncertain Pandemic Information, Amos Golan
T-036: Building Trust in COVID-19 Vaccines, Ramanan Laxminarayan, Susan Fitzpatrick & Simon Levin
Part Two: Interviews & Essays
THE INTERVIEWS
I-001: Halting the Spread of COVID-19, Laurent Hébert-Dufresne (Complexity Podcast Ep. 24)
I-002: Modeling Disease Transmission & Interventions, Samuel V. Scarpino (Complexity Podcast Ep. 25)
I-003: Improving COVID-19 Surveillance & Response, Caroline Buckee (Complexity Podcast Ep. 28)
THE ESSAYS
E-001: The Damage We’re Not Attending To, David Krakauer & Geoffrey West
E-002: Uncertain Times, Jessica C. Flack & Melanie Mitchell
Part Three: The Complexity of Crisis
Introduction: Applied Complexity in the Turbulent Disequilibrium, William Tracy & Casey Cox
THE TALKS
Presented at the Applied Complexity Network Symposium in fall 2020
S-001: From Tunnel Vision to Lateral Vision—in the Media & Elsewhere, Gillian Tett
S-002: Lost Attraction: How Civilizations Transform, Marten Scheffer
S-003: Lessons Learned & Next Steps: An Epidemiological View of the COVID Crisis & Its Complexities, Lauren Ancel Meyers
S-004: Institutional Transitions & Economic Outcomes, Suresh Naidu
THE PANEL
S-005: SFI Faculty Panel on the Complexity of Crisis, Mahzarin Banaji, J. Doyne Farmer, Jessica C. Flack, Mirta Galesic, Ricardo Hausmann, David Krakauer & David Wolpert