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SFI Applied Complexity Fellow Sam Zhang wants to understand the causal mechanisms that drive outcomes — particularly the undesirable ones — in real-world complex social systems. How do the myriad social, institutional, and systemic forces we create sometimes collide to lead to inequalities and human-rights injustices?

Exploring complex social systems with a quantitative approach involves abstracting rich and nuanced data. Many tools for analyzing these data are then developed with assumptions that do not always reflect or incorporate more qualitative, or theoretical, observations of the systems in question. SFI Complexity Postdoctoral Fellow Izabel Aguiar contends that what is lost in the process of strict quantification — a qualitative understanding of both nuance and pattern — creates potential blind spots in scientific fields that aim to quantitatively study human interactions.

In his new monograph, Kierkegaard’s Concept of the Interesting: The Aesthetic Gulf in “Either/Or” I, SFI Research Fellow Anthony Eagan guides readers through the first volume of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard's "Either/Or."

An October 7–9 workshop on “The Theory of Genetics: Articulating and Formalizing Theories of Biological Information” met as part of an ambitious project to develop an overarching theory for biology.

In the world of science journalism, a variety of fellowships offer opportunities to build skills, network, and find story ideas. Several programs invite journalists for a weekend, a month, or even a year. SFI’s Journalism Fellowship is one of a few that require fellows to put aside their journalism hats for an extended period to immerse themselves in learning. Applications for the 2025 CSSS Journalism Fellowship are open now through February 17, 2025.

SFI External Professor Andrea J. Liu (University of Pennsylvania) is the recipient of the APS 2025 Leo P. Kadanoff Prize, the American Physical Society announced on October 15. Liu is a statistical physicist who studies condensed-matter physics and biophysics. This award recognizes her “broad contributions to the statistical mechanics of disordered systems and biological matter, including the theory of jamming” — the theory of rigidity in a large class of disordered systems. 

SFI External Professor Tanmoy Bhattacharya (Los Alamos National Laboratory) has been elected as a fellow of the American Physical Society. He is recognized for his groundbreaking contributions to computational and fundamental physics, especially to lattice QCD and computational biology, including computations of the QCD equation of state at finite temperature, the neutron electric dipole moment, and the timing of the spread of the modern HIV pandemic.

A new study in Theory and Society shows that the printing of witch-hunting manuals, particularly the Malleus Maleficarum in 1487, played a crucial role in spreading persecution across Europe. The study also highlights how trials in one city influenced others. This social influence — observing what neighbors were doing — played a key role in whether a city would adopt witch trials.

In the past, a person might be diagnosed with hysteria — a mental condition for which no useful treatment could be possible, because the diagnostic category was too broad and unfounded. The idea of “hysteria” limited our understanding of the human mind. SFI Complexity Postdoctoral Fellow Marina Dubova wants to challenge contemporary categories and methods in science that may limit rather than enhance our understanding of the world.

Conventional approaches to the study of inequality focus on income and wealth, but an individual’s position within their economic networks is another important form of inequality. Efforts to understand these economic networks rely heavily on conventional surveying techniques, which often fall short when applied to populations defined by a stigmatized behavior or status. EPE and Applied Complexity Fellow Justin Weltz is developing new methods for gathering quality data about understudied groups. At SFI, he will focus on issues of policymaking and wealth inequality.

In a new paper in Science Advances, SFI Complexity Postdoctoral Fellow Yuanzhaho Zhang reports on how higher-order interactions can reshape a system at large — even global — scales.

"I remember the day when, at the age of 7, I realized that I wanted to figure out how reality worked," writes SFI External Professor Vijay Balasubramanian in this essay for Nautilus. "By the time I was 8, I was convinced that everything could be explained, and that I, personally, was going to do it." 

What is reality? And is there just one reality or many, perhaps infinitely many? In this essay first published in Nautilus magazine, SFI researchers David Krakauer and David Wolpert explore how scientists tend to think about reality. 

"This past spring on my way to the Santa Fe Institute, home to polymath thinkers and thinking, tucked into the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, I thought of writer Don DeLillo," writes Nautilus Editor Kevin Berger in his introduction to the magazine's "Reality" issue. "I was bound for a conference called 'Investigating Reality' that would feature talks by renowned physicists, mathematicians, philosophers, computer scientists, and artists."

The beliefs we hold develop from a complex dance between our internal and external lives. A recent study published in Psychological Review uses well-known formalisms in statistical physics to model multiple aspects of belief-network dynamics. This multidimensional approach to modeling belief dynamics could offer new tools for tackling various real-world problems such as polarization or the spread of disinformation.

In The Complex World, the newest book from the SFI Press, SFI President David C. Krakauer offers readers a concise and comprehensive overview of complexity science, following its roots from the nineteenth-century science of machines — evolved and engineered — into the twentieth-century science of emergent systems.

SFI External Professor Orit Peleg (CU Boulder) has been named a “Schmidt Science Polymath” by the philanthropic organization Schmidt Sciences. Peleg is one of six awardees this year who will each receive $2.5 million over the next five years to pursue risky, novel ideas. 

It’s become easier than ever before to engage with content online, particularly with features like infinite scrolling. However, the smooth user experience of social media apps encourages superficial engagement. In turn, this has contributed to the spread of fake news, misinformation, and hate speech. A September 11–13 working group discusses the impacts of introducing friction in social media to help tackle these problems.

On August 19–23, SFI Professor Melanie Mitchell and SFI External Professor John Krakauer (Johns Hopkins University) led a working group on “The Nature of Intelligence.” It was the first in a series of six meetings to be held over the next three years. Scholars from diverse fields — neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, philosophy, and AI — were invited to investigate the broad notion of intelligence, whether in machines or biological systems. 

In his new SFI Press monograph, Complex-Systems Research in Psychology, SFI External Professor Han van der Maas offers a roadmap for how psychologists could adopt and apply complexity science.