Growing Artificial Societies: Social Science from the Bottom Up

How do social structures and group behaviors arise from the interaction ofindividuals? Growing Artificial Societies approaches this question withcutting-edge computer simulation techniques. Fundamental collective behaviors such as groupformation, cultural transmission, combat, and trade are seen to "emerge" from the interaction ofindividual agents following a few simple rules. In their program, namedSugarscape, Epstein and Axtell begin the development of a "bottom up" social science that iscapturing the attention of researchers and commentators alike. The study is partof the 2050 Project, a joint venture of the Santa Fe Institute, the World Resources Institute, andthe Brookings Institution. The project is an international effort to identify conditions for asustainable global system in the next century and to design policies to help achieve such asystem. Copublished with the Brookings Institution