News + Events

STEVEN N. DURLAUF has edited another edition of The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, established as the leading reference work in the field. Durlauf is the Kenneth J. Arrow Professor of Economics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, USA. He has served as Co-Director of the Economics Program at the Santa Fe Institute for which he currently serves as a Science Board and external faculty member. A Fellow of the Econometric Society, Durlauf's research covers a range of topics in macroeconomics, econometrics, and income inequality. The second edition will retain many individual classic essays of enduring importance from its predecessor plus over one thousand new or heavily revised articles.

A Wall Street Journal article about what happens in various societies to people who don't share, solicits the opinion of SFI Professor Howard Gintis. The article notes, "social appearances and the good opinion of others do regulate our behavior. In the only other major cross-cultural study of this sort, Dr. Gintis and his colleagues several years ago examined 15 primitive societies of farmers, foragers, hunters and nomads in 12 countries, not unlike those in which humanity might have first evolved. The researchers found that these people all cared as much about fairness as the economic outcome of a trade." "They care about the ethical value of what they do," said Dr. Gintis.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev decries America's military buildup since the Cold War and he is calling for more international cooperation in addressing political and environmental problems. Gorbachev says the growing U.S. defense budget is pushing other countries to do the same and he contends that the expansion of conventional weapons also will undermine efforts to abolish nuclear weapons. Gorbachev, who left office in 1991, was in Santa Fe to deliver a speech to benefit the Santa Fe Institute, a research and education center. He made his comments at a news conference before his lecture.

An article by Santa Fe New Mexican science writer Sue Vorenberg explores the discussions from "Dominance, Leveling and Egalitarianism in Primates and Other Animals," a Workshop organized by SFI Professor Sam Bowles.

Why do longstanding cultural phenomena such as marriage customs change over time? Why do certain forms of cultural variation persist over generations while others perish? These are some of the questions researchers will consider at SFI this month.

An SFI meeting on Honolulu in March is bringing together researchers – physicists and historians alike – who think they can rewrite history books.

A panel discussion at SFI on March 20 will examine the limitations and the value of counterinsurgency as a tool for mitigating political violence in war-torn countries. The discussion, open to the public, is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at the SFI campus.

Sometimes the most effective weapon against disease might not be a drug or vaccine, but a bit of well-turned mathematics. A small working group met at SFI in late February with the goal of improving the mathematical models used to understand, manage, and prevent infectious disease epidemics.

- SFI Professor Sam Bowles (University of Sienna) to speak Friday, February 15 at 10:30 a.m. on "Moral Judgment: Evolutionary and Psychological Perspectives" - SFI External Professor Nina Fedoroff (Advisor to the Secretary of State, U. S. Department of State and Penn Sate University) to speak at 1:45 p.m. Friday, February 15 on "Are There Diverse Paths to Progress in Global Science?" and again Saturday, February 16 Dr. Fedoroff will deliver the Plenary Lecture at 6:30 p.m. - SFI Professor Douglas Erwin (Smithsonian Institution) will speak Monday, February 16 at 9:15 a.m. on "Major Transformations in Evolution: The State of the Art and Public Understanding"

(SFI Trustee) Bill Miller is headlined internationally about Yahoo!'s possible merger with Microsoft. "The second-largest shareholder ...thinks the software giant will have to sweeten its offer to get the $44.6 billion deal done. Bill Miller, who runs Legg Mason's Value Trust fund, ...controls more than 80 million Yahoo! shares, or about 6 percent of the company, valued at roughly $2.3 billion...In the letter, he mentions press reports that claim Microsoft was prepared to pay over $40 a share for Yahoo! last year and that his own valuations of the company are in that range, although he didn't say how much he wants from Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer. "We think MSFT will need to enhance its offer if it wants to complete a deal," Miller said."

Are there rules, akin to the laws of physics, that explain the patterns and regularities that arise in human society? Participants in a three-day January workshop in Santa Fe, organized by SFI Postdoctoral Fellow Aaron Clauset and Michelle Girvan (former SFI postdoc, now University of Maryland), addressed that question drawing on principles of statistics, physics, computation, chemistry, political science, and sociology.

Researchers from 15 institutions in the U.S. and Japan gathered in Santa Fe Dec. 7-9 for a three-day workshop, Models of Emergent Behavior in Complex Adaptive Systems.

Fifteen Nobel laureates and dozens of other luminaries from the world of science and policy, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, discussed the global challenge of sustainability during an interdisciplinary Nobel Laureates Symposium in Potsdam, Germany, in October.

Why and how diversity collapses in complex systems was the unifying theme of SFI’s Annual Business Network and Board of Trustees’ Symposium Nov. 2-3 at the Bishop’s Lodge in Santa Fe.

Colloquium Series - "Operating on the Edge of Chaos at Google," by Shona Brown, Vice President Google, Robert N. Noyce Conference Room, 3:30 P.M. to 4:30 P.M.

James Brown (University of New Mexico Professor and SFI External Faculty and Science Steering Committee Member) was recently elected Honorary Member, the highest honor conferred by the ASM (American Society of Mammalogists).

Nina Fedoroff (Evan Pugh Professor of Biology, Willaman Professor of Life Sciences, Pennsylvania State University and SFI External Professor) will be giving the Ulam lectures this year. They will be held on September 12, 13, and 14, at the James A. Little Theater beginning at 7:30 P.M.

Christian de Duve, Nobel Laureate (Medicine 1974); Founder, International Institute of Cellular and Molecular Pathology; and Professor Emeritus, University of Louvain and Rockefeller University, will give a talk entitled "The Origin of Life" on Wednesday, April 5, 2006 at 7:00 pm at the James A. Little Theater.