SFI Bulletin winter 2006, vol. 21 #1

Beyond the Big Bang • The Amazon’s Lost Civilizations • The Truth Behind Lying The Bulletin of the Santa Fe Institute is published by SFI to keep its friends and supporters informed about its work.

The Santa Fe Institute is a private, independent, multidiscipli- nary research and education center founded in 1984. Since its founding, SFI has devoted itself to creating a new kind of sci- entific research community, pursuing emerging synthesis in science. Operating as a visiting institution, SFI seeks to cat- alyze new collaborative, multidisciplinary research; to break down the barriers between the traditional disciplines; to spread its ideas and methodologies to other institutions; and to encourage the practical application of its results.

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EDITORIAL STAFF: Ginger Richardson Lesley S. King Andi Sutherland

CONTRIBUTORS: Brooke Harrington Janet Yagoda Shagam Julian Smith Janet Stites James Trefil

DESIGN & PRODUCTION: Paula Eastwood PHOTO: ROBERT BUELTEMAN ©2004 BUELTEMAN PHOTO: ROBERT SFI Bulletin Winter 2006

TOCtable of contents 3

A Deceptively Simple Formula 2

How Life Began 3

From Finances to Romantic Science: SFI’s New Leaders Talk 8

Forrester Research: SFI Epitomizes the Innovation Broker 13

Amazonia’s Hidden Civilizations 14

Deception: What Lies Beneath 20

30 Outsmarting AIDS 26

The Future of Agent-Based Modeling of Financial Markets 30

SFI Community Lectures 36

Transitions 38 20

Identifying the New 41 Photo credits: Top: Yellowstone National Park Left: David Dewey; Right: © Erich Lessing/Art Resource

Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 1 A Deceptively Simple Formula By Geoffrey West, President

The Santa Fe Institute is Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge more than 20 years old and, that produced 12 Nobel Laureates (including thanks to the visionary leadership of Watson and Crick): “No politics, no reports, no past presidents, board members, and referees, just gifted, highly motivated people, an outstanding array of scientists, it picked by a few men of good judgment.” This is now well established on the inter- is the ultimate challenge for us—if only it were national scientific landscape. so simple! Of course we have the advantage of Complexity Science, with its tenta- being able to depend on a few women of good cles stretching across an astonishing judgment as well.

ROBERT MILLER spectrum of fundamental problems, Bringing brilliant minds together to attack : is now viewed as a legitimate, excit- some of the big problems that might otherwise PHOTO ing frontier, with SFI playing a cen- fall between the cracks is our major challenge. tral and seminal role. We have extraordinary For example, SFI is particularly well positioned name recognition and, per dollar, we must be to facilitate serious interactions between those one of the best-known institutes in the world! from the harder sciences of physics, chemistry, This recognition goes well beyond the nar- and mathematics with those from the softer, row confines of the traditional scientific com- more qualitative biomedical and social sci- munity reaching into the corporate and busi- ences. To what extent (if at all) can these be ness world. Recently, senior journalists from put on a more quantitative, mathematical, pre- both Wired and Time magazines spent time dictive basis derived from “universal” underly- with us prodding and poking around trying ing principles and laws? Among the sorts of to uncover the secrets of our success. Their problems being attacked are questions such efforts will result in what we hope to be favor- as, Are there general principles and conceptual able feature articles (as well as a book) about commonalities underlying robustness, the Institute. In addition, Harvard Business resilience, innovation, and evolution—concepts Review will feature an interview with me that are ubiquitous and central across the exploring why SFI is so attractive to business- entire spectrum of science and technology? es. Despite all of this, we remain, by our very To what extent are social organizations an nature and design, a little on the outside and extension of biology? How are energy, “on the edge,” namely, a continually evolving resource, and information networks integrated experiment not only in the science that we in living systems, in engineered systems, in support but in the way we do it. societies? Such questions are of fundamental Maintaining the vision of the Institute as a importance, sometimes requiring a new way of haven for brilliant mavericks, risk-takers, big- thinking and a synthesis that can be difficult to thinkers, and synthesizers who are willing to accomplish in the often-constrained environ- go beyond the more traditional boundaries is ment of a particular department in a typical an enormous challenge. Identifying such university. But here, it is possible. people and convincing them to become part of There are tremendous opportunities for us the SFI community is perhaps the single most as a community to continue the tradition set important task of being president. I am much by the founding fathers and early associates of influenced by the deceptively simple formula the Institute: to remain on the frontier of dis- expressed by Max Perutz, who was the direc- covery. I look forward to working with all of tor of the notable Medical Research Council you to accomplish the dream. t

2 Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 How Life Began by James Trefil

In the Beginning…

There are few phrases in the English language more freighted with meaning than this. Veteran lecturers know that there is nothing that evokes a sense of awe and majesty (and, in some people, insecurity) like a discussion of the origin of the uni- verse or the origin of life. Now, a nationwide research effort spearheaded by Harold Morowitz of the Santa Fe Institute and George Mason University is forming to attack the ulti- mate question of how life began, to learn what might have happened— “In the beginning.” This new effort is being funded by a five year, $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The Foundation Some of the fundamental physical has funded a small number of research efforts in a program and chemical processes that were they call Frontiers in Integrative Biological Research (FIBR). present early in the history of our The idea of this initiative is to identify research projects that, planet still exist under the ocean. if successful, would result in major advances in our knowl- Here, images from the 2004 edge of living systems, but carry a high risk as well. Three Submarine Ring of Fire exploration awards were given in 2005. The SFI grant involves scientists depict various aspects of at SFI and George Mason University, together with colleagues volcanoes on the sea floor at at the University of Colorado, the Carnegie Institution of Mariana Arc in the Pacific Ocean. Washington, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, PHOTOS: NATIONAL OCEANIC & and Arizona State University. ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION

Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 3 VICE; BACTERIA PHOTO: KARL STETTER HOT SPRINGS PHOTOS: NATIONAL PARK SER PARK HOT SPRINGS PHOTOS: NATIONAL

Above: Gases emanating from a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park provide a key to understanding some of the early building blocks that make up living systems. Left: Aquifex pyrophilus bacteria may preserve much of the metabolism and way of life of the earliest cells.

The question the group is trying to answer compounds normally found in volcanic erup- is deceptively easy to pose. We know that our tions was subjected to heating (to simulate the planet started out as a hot, airless, molten ball action of the sun) and electric sparks (to simu- in space. The question is, How did we get late lightning). After a few weeks, the liquid in from that to a planet teeming with life? In par- the apparatus turned a dark brown and they ticular, what was the first event we can point found, upon analysis, that it contained mole- to and say, “Here it is—here is the first living cules called amino acids. thing, the first thing clearly different from any- As it happens, amino acids are the basic thing that came before it.” building blocks from which proteins—the For most of human history, the problem of workhorses of the cell’s chemistry—are made. understanding the creation of a living thing What Miller and Urey had shown, in other from inorganic materials—of making life from words, was that you could start with simple non-life—was simply outside of the realm of molecules—ammonia, hydrogen, water, and experimental science. Then, in 1953, an exper- methane—and end up with the kinds of mole- iment at the University of Chicago changed cules that are found in living systems. And all that. Two scientists—the then graduate stu- even though today most scientists do not dent Stanley Miller and the Nobel Laureate think that all of the materials in the Miller- chemist Harold Urey—set up an apparatus in Urey experiment were actually present on the a basement lab that, they believed, mimicked early Earth, they acknowledge that their result conditions on the early Earth. A gas containing put the study of the origin of life, for the first

4 Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 CH3COOH CO2 H2 time, squarely in the domain of science. The new approach being explored by the Since 1953, there have been a number of Santa Fe collaboration takes just the opposite important developments on this front. For of the top-down approach. It builds on sug- one thing, we have found that amino acids gestions made during the 1980s by John and other simple molecules found in living Corliss, Gunter Wachtershauser, and Christian systems are made everywhere in nature. They de Duve (who will be visiting SFI this spring). have been found, for example, in meteorites Instead of starting with complex modern cells, and interstellar dust clouds. The result is that it begins with simple molecules that would we now realize that the basic building blocks have been present on the early Earth and asks of living systems are not as rare or unusual as what sorts of self-reproducing chemical cycles originally thought. The problem of under- could be generated from them. In the words standing the origin of life, then, doesn’t arise of SFI Research Professor Eric Smith, a physi- because we can’t find the building blocks to cist who often refers to himself as a “statistical put a living system mechanic,” the real ques- together, but rather under- tion to ask is, “What was standing how those build- WHAT WAS THE FIRST the problem with the pre- ing blocks assembled EVENT WE CAN POINT TO biotic Earth that was themselves into a func- solved by the appearance tioning cell. AND SAY, “HERE IT IS— of life?” Over the years, two HERE IS THE FIRST LIVING There is a simple anal- competing approaches to THING, THE FIRST THING ogy that may help to this problem have devel- understand this new way oped—Morowitz and his CLEARLY DIFFERENT FROM of attacking the problem colleagues call them the ANYTHING THAT CAME of life. Suppose you want- “cells first” and “genes first” ed to explain the modern approaches. Both of these BEFORE IT.” Interstate highway sys- involve what Morowitz tem. One way would be calls a “top-down” methodology. They start to start with the current system and try to with the highly complex and organized cells of work backwards. Another way would be to today and try to find ways to construct them go back to the pre-Columbian geography of from inorganic materials. In the “cells first” North America and try to understand the fea- approach, the membranes that separate living tures of the landscape that affected the way systems from their environment appeared first, humans would have moved around. You and the molecules trapped inside the compart- would talk about how it is easier to travel on ments then evolved the reactions characteristic rivers than through forests, easier to go of life. The “genes (or catalysts) first” approach through mountain passes than over the peaks, assumes that, as in modern cells, early chemical and so on. Eventually, you would put together reactions had to be governed by the interven- a map of where the tracks on the continent tion of other molecules acting in the role of cat- would most likely have been located, and alysts or enzymes. The so-called “RNA world” only then talk about how those tracks evolved scenario, in which the complex RNA molecule, into the Interstate system. And, as anyone which plays a major role in the chemistry of who has driven across the country on modern cells, develops and acts as a catalyst to Interstate 80 can testify, a lot of that primitive bring about the chemical reactions of life, is the map would survive in the modern system. best known of these schemes. So in the end, what matters are simple

Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 5 CO2, H2, (PO4)n, SH H2

molecules and how they interact. Smith envi- In the collaboration, theoretical research of sions the problem of producing life from these this type will be complemented by experi- molecules in an interesting way: he thinks of mental work by George Cody at the Carnegie the possible chemical reactions as a vast sys- Institution of Washington, who will be exam- tem of possibilities, and asks how nature finds ining chemical reactions at the kinds of pres- a path for energy to get through the system. sures attained near deep sea vents at the bot- It’s a little like pouring water down a slope. In tom of the ocean, where many scientists now principle, there’s no apparent reason why the think life originated. water should flow one way rather than anoth- But the group isn’t stopping with establish- er, but, in fact, it will quickly find specific ing how the first living things might have orig- channels that get it to the bottom. In the same inated. Even if that problem is solved, there way, Smith believes there are “channels” in the remains the enormous task of understanding chemical landscape through which energy will how those first primitive cells gave rise to the flow, and it is these reactions that, ultimately, enormous complexity of modern cells. In gave rise to life. Needless to say, this revolu- terms of our analogy, even if we get the pre- tionary approach is still controversial within Columbian game trails right, we still have to the scientific community. Time will reveal if it trace the development from wagon trails to can eventually replace the more conventional paved roads to Interstate highways. approaches outlined above. Shelley Copley, of the University of Colorado, is examining one of the steps in this process. She is asking how the complexity of DNA could have arisen from the simple chemical properties of the molecules that constitute its basic building blocks. She sees the problem as an accumulation of molecules fitting together like pieces of some impossible three- dimensional jigsaw puzzle, explaining features of DNA that have long been mysterious. Copley’s work will be comple- mented by computer studies done by Zaida Luthey-Schulten of the University of Illinois. Finally, with this approach to the origin of life, the characteris- tics of very primitive organisms— IMAGE: NASA/JPL the organisms closest to that ori- This painting depicts an artist’s view of what Earth might have looked like gin—become very important. It during the Archean period, the earlier of the two divisions of the has been known for some time Precambrian era (3.96 billion to 540 million years ago). This was an age that among single-celled organ- of little oxygen, in which the unicellular bacteria and archaea were the isms a process called horizontal only life forms. gene transfer goes on. As the

6 Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 CH3COOH CO2 PHOTO: NASA/JPL

This NASA photo of a Bolivian coastline offers a metaphor for the vast system of possibilities that nature finds for energy to get through a system. In the same way that water finds its way to the sea, there are “channels” in the chemical landscape through which energy will flow, and it is these that, ultimately, gave rise to life.

name suggests, this involves cells swapping life is its focus on the fundamental physical genes with each other, rather than having genes and chemical processes that we know were develop in distinct lines unique to each organ- present early in the history of our planet—the ism. Carl Woese and Nigel Goldenfeld of the processes we know must have given rise to University of Illinois will be looking at the life in the first place. It encourages us to see effect of this process on the development of the life not as some highly improbable frozen universal genetic code embodied in DNA. They accident but as a natural outcome of the will be particularly interested in whether that workings of the physical universe. It makes us code is optimized, a possibility Woese first sug- want to agree with Harold Morowitz when he gested in the 1960s, and what role horizontal says, “In the end, life is simple.” gene transfer might play in the optimization For a more detailed discussion of the sci- process. In this way, the Illinois group, working ence underwritten by the FIBR grant, see downward from the genetic code, might con- “Searching for the Laws of Life” in the SFI nect with the other members of the team work- Bulletin, Winter 2004, Volume 19, Number 1.t ing upward from basic chemical reactions. In the end, what is exciting and new about James Trefil is Clarence J. Robinson Professor of Physics this multi-pronged approach to the origin of at George Mason University

Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 7 From Finances to Romantic Science: SFI’s New Leaders Talk

By Lesley S. King

Chris Wood and Geoffrey West ALL PHOTOS BY ROBERT MILLER ALL PHOTOS BY ROBERT

In the summer of president, with responsibilities stepped into our new positions, 2005, the Santa Fe covering both academic affairs and also the leadership of the Institute took a new and the administration of the Board of Trustees has changed. strategic direction by Institute. In this conversation, It seemed a natural time to reex- naming as president one of its West and Wood mull over some amine SFI, both in terms of its key scientists Distinguished of the issues facing their new science and its operations. We Professor Geoffrey West, whose posts and SFI as a whole. also hired three new resident current work involves exploring faculty members and eight new universal scaling laws in biology On Leadership postdoctoral fellows at the start and social systems. At the same West: We’ve gone through of this academic year, so that time, the Institute named neuro- many changes in the past began the process of rebuilding scientist Chris Wood as vice months. Chris and I have the science side of the Institute.

8 Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 It’s all part of rethinking the way faculty. But every non-scientific West: I also originally came we do science here and how we question about the Institute is through Los Alamos, which tra- carry out the SFI mission. We’re on the table. Some of the ques- ditionally was a unique and reaching out to the larger com- tions include, Who are our highly supportive environment munity, creating a more effec- sources of funding and how do to do science. Unfortunately, tive, integrated external faculty, we cultivate them? How do we over the last ten years or so, this getting the programs more maintain them? How do we situation has deteriorated so active, and getting more work- organize our visitor programs that, unwittingly in some ways, shops on board. and our workshops? Exactly the lab has almost become hos- Wood: One of Bill Miller’s what steps do we need to go tile to basic science, in spite of actions as new chair of the through in order to insure that a itself. The reality was that if you Board of Trustees was to initiate visitor has an office, has the were leading a basic research an “operational review” of the computing resources that she or group, you had to spend a sig- Institute to evaluate the adminis- he needs, and has the support nificant amount of your time trative, financial, and operational from all of us? What are the defending the very existence of systems supporting the strategic goals of SFI’s educa- that group and trying to raise Institute’s scientific programs. tional and international pro- funds to keep it alive. I felt my The result has been an intense grams? How do we most effec- role of running a successful addition to our normal activity. tively achieve them? So the group was to provide a highly Three members of the board or entire “business end” of our supportive environment for their associates; Doug Erwin, SFI operation has been under scruti- them to do excellent science. professor and chair of the ny. We expect that the review This is very much the attitude Science Steering Committee; will have a lasting effect on the that I brought with me when I plus Geoffrey and I have been Institute, one that improves our came here. busy with it since mid-August. support of the Institute’s science Board Chair Bill Miller and Vice and scientists. Rethinking SFI Science Chair Ford Rowan, and Trustee West: My own strong propen- Jim Rutt have been especially The Journey to SFI sity is that it’s very important for active in the process. Elizabeth Wood: I spent 16 years before I an institution like the Santa Fe Hughes, senior vice president of came here in a scientific leader- Institute to be driven from the Legg Mason Capital ship role at Los Alamos National bottom up. We cannot impose Management, headed up the Laboratory, and I had a job there our version of science on anyone project for Bill Miller. We spent that required scientific judgment here. We see our role primarily a full week here interviewing and leadership, as well as orga- as facilitators, ensuring always absolutely everybody who nizational and administrative that there is a flux of excellent wanted to be interviewed with skills. Over those years, the cli- people thinking about deep, fun- respect to answering the follow- mate of Los Alamos changed damental problems at all scales, ing question: If today’s SFI had from a place where science was who also have interests that not evolved over a 20-year peri- primary to one in which the sci- cross traditional disciplinary od but instead were created new ence became increasingly sec- boundaries. In addition, we also out of whole cloth, how would ondary to other considerations. help to guide the Institute in we organize it to enable it to run That experience, among others, making decisions, not only effectively? helped prepare me to under- about issues such as how many This is not a question of stand the balance that’s needed resident faculty members, post- what science we are doing. That between science, organization, docs, etc., we should have here, was off the table in the review and administration in any effec- but we might also ask of each and remains in the hands of our tive scientific organization. area of research or each pro-

Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 9 gram: Is this an area of energy and resources in science that we should an ecosystem. What was be involved in? How realized was that there should that be carried was surprising common- out? Who should be ality of thinking and involved? Who else there was the potential of should get involved? forming a unified theory Where is it going and of ecology, if we can what is its impact, and bring all these ideas over what time scale? together and integrate These sorts of questions them. So there was a are really part of the tremendous amount of continuous dialogue excitement generated, among SFI researchers. and the result is a more Primarily I’m excited dedicated workshop at by new ideas, new ways SFI in the fall. This is the of thinking, and different sort of effort that has twists on old problems been difficult to put that people can bring to together anywhere else the table. SFI can play a but the Santa Fe Institute. significant role in doing things and analyze it to death—and Clearly, on the one hand, we that wouldn’t normally or easily this is very important to do—but want and need to be involved in be done in a university or a if you’re interested in the big some of the big questions that national lab—though obviously picture of what the underlying sit at the center of science but there’s often significant overlap. principles might be, if there are tend to get neglected because of Identifying the serious mavericks any, and whether there are com- the pressures and the nature of or risk-takers who might make monalities connecting ecosys- science as now practiced in uni- the difference is an enormous tems across the globe—then a versities. On the other hand, challenge. much broader approach is we’d also like and need to be An example is new work required. Ultimately much of the involved in problems that are we’re initiating in biology. One power of science is its search for really at the edges, that are quite of the more qualitative fields of universality and commonality. speculative, and maybe can’t be biology is ecology and it’s one Recently we helped sponsor taken very far, but it’s important of the most important. It a small working group in Chile. that they are investigated. An involves questions of sustain- It was made up of people who example is a recent workshop ability, questions about the have begun to think in these led by David Krakauer exploring future of the environment, and bigger terms; they brought dif- the science of history. so on. There are, however, rela- ferent expertise to the table. tively few quantitative, predic- Some have thought a lot about On Finances tive aspects to that field. Much questions of the origin and West: Another goal, which ecology tends to be character- dynamics of the diversity of we’re just beginning to address, ized by investigations on specific species, trying to determine the is to really get the Santa Fe sets of organisms in specific underlying principles. Another Institute on a deeply sound ecosystems. These investigations group has thought a lot about financial footing. Without having might look at a specific pasture, the questions of the distribu- that real base core of funding to or a square mile on some prairie tions of various quantities like provide a cushion, wherever it

10 Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 comes from, our science poten- there are other places like it, but and are thinking about some of tially suffers, and the ability to in particular SFI—is really cru- the bigger questions, both intel- attract truly outstanding people cial in the academic landscape. lectually and in terms of societal and put together the kinds of It is a place that is not con- needs. And yet, by and large, workshops or working groups strained by the conventional that’s not happening very much we’d like becomes so much of a academic tenure process, the at the grassroots level within labor that it doesn’t happen. kinds of delivery systems that departments or in governmental This is becoming particularly major universities demand of agencies, so it’s very important crucial as federal budgets for sci- their faculty, and the sorts of that SFI remains at the level of ence tighten and the focus of constraints imposed by the excellence that it is, and that it awards becomes ever more nar- funding agencies, which all has the sort of feedback and row. So it’s very important. point towards greater and enthusiasm that it garnishes greater narrowness and less and from some parts of the academ- On The Board less concentration on some of ic community. Wood: Absolutely critical to the bigger questions. I should Wood: Geoffrey’s right about Geoffrey’s and my ability to do hasten to add that there is no the irony. One of the great suc- our jobs is the very strong and question that the vast majority cesses of this institution in its 20 vocal commitment of our new of research should, in fact, be plus-year history is that SFI sci- board leadership. Bill Miller and disciplinary oriented and highly ence and scientists are influential Ford Rowan have taken on their focused. However, it should not all over the world. There are

“THERE ARE GROWING COMPLEX SYSTEMS EFFORTS IN EUROPE, SOUTH AMERICA, AND THE FAR EAST, ALL OF WHICH CAN TRACE INFLUENCE, IF NOT DIRECT LINEAGE, TO WORK THAT’S BEEN DONE HERE AT SFI.” new roles with a vigor and a be at the expense of totally growing complex systems efforts degree of commitment both excluding the broader view that in Europe, South America, and intellectually and financially that acts across traditional bound- the Far East, all of which can sets really high standards for us aries. I see SFI as a haven for trace influence, if not direct line- and is a great encouragement nurturing such activities. age, to work that’s been done because it’s clear that they, on That narrowness was a prob- here at SFI in the past. behalf of the board, are genuine- lem perceived 20 years ago by West: It is interesting how ly committed to this institution. the founding fathers of this many people contact us from all Without that kind of commit- institution, and they had over the world telling us about ment from the board it would tremendous foresight in seeing new centers that they are form- be very difficult, if not impossi- it, but one of the great ironies is ing—derivations of SFI—and ble, to do the kind of job that that the situation has worsened that they’d like to have some Geoffrey and I want to do and over the intervening 20 years. formal association with SFI. plan to do for the Institute. Today more and more presi- Wood: We do need to consider dents, provosts, deans, and licensing, Geoffrey. (laughter) The Scientific Landscape directors of funding agencies are West: It’s a very schizophrenic West: I believe that the exis- speaking in favor of doing inter- landscape, especially in terms of tence of an institute like the disciplinary work, getting the funding. For example, we Santa Fe Institute—and maybe involved with complex systems, get generously funded by the

Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 11 National Science Foundation, versions. Many key scientific cal structure of universities. In but they warn us that when the questions remain unanswered, fact, I often say the following budgets get tight the first things and it is clear that the old ways and it resonates: The Santa Fe to go are things that don’t fit of approaching them will not be Institute is the place many of us into the normal disciplinary adequate. thought we were going to when boxes, despite the fact that the we were very young and con- highest levels—the administra- Romantic Science templating academic life. We tors and directors—are strongly West: There’s no question that thought in our naiveté, that encouraging agencies to get the traditional structure of uni- that’s what universities were, a more and more involved in versities is undergoing examina- community of scholars from opportunities like this. tion, especially in regard to varying backgrounds with multi- crossing disciplinary boundaries, ple talents and interests thinking Threats to the Institute but it’s still awfully difficult to about the great and deep issues West: One major threat is that accomplish change, and we of our time. we’re not going to rise to the flourish because of that. And I It was a totally romantic, challenge of really taking risks suppose—and maybe I should- unrealistic image of possibly and doing exciting things. The n’t say this—but I would love to what might have existed in the pressure to do things that are see a time come when there’s no middle of the 19th century in safe is very strong. We need to need for SFI. It would be won- some places—I don’t know. And facilitate new programs, take on derful if the philosophy of SFI possibly it still does, some- collaborations that are a little bit were integrated into the canoni- where. There might be remnants out of the ordinary— in a few Oxford and take risks. And yet we Cambridge colleges, have to make sure the but basically I don’t ideas are not flakey, think it exists now, if it but instead have ever actually did. serious intellectual Nevertheless, it’s a content, value, and wonderful and exciting potential. fantasy. And I like to Wood: Another threat think that such a com- would be the tempta- munity of broad-think- tion to bask in our ing scholars following own success. As their noses in the search important as SFI has of a deeper understand- been, we cannot suc- ing of the important ceed by reinventing or intellectual issues and revisiting those specific challenges of the day is days or scientific what we are trying to efforts of the past. We approximate at SFI. I need to invent the SFI think it’s a wonderful science of the future. goal and I feel blessed The rest of the world, that in my waning whether we like it or years, I can actually do not, is using what what I wanted to do we’ve done and when I was sixteen inventing their own years old. t

12 Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 Forrester Research: SFI Epitomizes the Innovation Broker

The Santa Fe Institute Business Network connects individuals from the world of business with researchers at the Institute. Recently, Forrester Research, an independent technology and market research company that provides advice about technology’s impact on business and consumers, recommended the Business Network to its subscribers. The compa- ny writes reports on institutions they deem are pioneering new business models or business practices. It guides marketing executives, business strategists, and IT professionals in creating technology plans to help gain advantages. Forrester characterizes the SFI Business Network as an “innovation broker.” Here’s a summary of Forrester’s findings:

FIRMS CAN BOOST THEIR INNOVATION IQ BY JOINING THE SFI BUSINESS NETWORK

Forrester’s framework for innovation called Innovation evolution is likely to proceed and how firms can keep Networks emphasizes the interaction of diverse roles pace or lead. For example, Boeing’s Phantom Works (Inventor, Transformer, Broker, and Financier) and applies CAS principles to transform a new military abilities. In Forrester’s terminology, SFI epitomizes the strategy known as network-centric warfare into air- Broker; it was set up over 20 years ago to be a new craft and weapons systems. To keep up with the kind of academic institution. Rather than being best increasing pace of innovation, companies should tap in one field, it would be a place where world-class into SFI’s insights on evolution’s fundamental rules— researchers in fields as diverse as linguistics and and how to apply them to their own businesses. nuclear physics would meet, exchange ideas, and u Get involved in the experiments, and innovate. In our opinion, few institutions perform this advance the science of business strategy. role as well as SFI. Firms who want to be innovation Just as products and services evolve, business leaders should join the SFI Business Network for the strategy-making itself is in a constant state of change. following reasons: Whereas previous revolutions in management and u Get a decade-long lead on the next big thing. organization came from military hierarchies and time- Revolutionary innovations often come from the inter- and-motion studies, tomorrow’s strategies will come section of previously separate fields, and bringing from understanding how birds flock, snowflakes form, together diverse leaders is SFI’s mandate. For exam- or cells combine to create consciousness. For exam- ple, Honda sends its R&D scouts to SFI Business ple, SFI Business Network member Capital One uses Network events to help them meet Inventors who CAS principles—putting customer feedback and ana- can give them ideas about consumer and technology lytics tools in thousands of entrepreneurial employ- trends that lie on the 5- to 15-year horizon. At the ees’ hands—to finance thousands of experimental same time, Honda’s forays into jet engines and hydro- microstrategies at once. Firms that gain SFI’s insights gen-powered cars inform and inspire other attendees. and test them in the real world will find out first what inventions work—and finance their transformation to u Evolve your organizational organism and market faster than slower-moving competitors can. avoid extinction. Today’s harsh business environ- ment will only get harsher, especially since the For a copy of the full report, see major factors in the environment, competitors and www.santafe.edu/business/files/Forrester1105.pdf. customers, are constantly evolving too. Complex The Santa Fe Institute: An Innovation Broker, Adaptive Systems (CAS) principles show how Forrester Research, Inc., November 2005.

Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 13 14 Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 AMAZONIA’S Hidden Civilizations

By Julian Smith

The lush rainforests of Amazonia, with their over- whelming profusion of green, fed by massive rivers and torren- tial downpours, were long thought to be a cultural desert. Despite the richness of the environment and the highly com- plex and successful cultures that existed just uphill in the Andes, the poor, shallow soils in the Amazon Basin were seen as an insurmountable hurdle to large-scale societies. This was the thinking for much of the 20th century. Recently, however, this view has shifted. In a May 2005 meeting in Florianopolis, Brazil, sponsored by the Santa Fe Institute and the School of American Research, rep- resentatives of a kaleidoscope of disciplines came together to take a fresh look at long-term cycles of social and environmen- tal change in the Amazon. The former image of virgin rainforest occupied by small nomadic groups has been replaced by one that also includes large, complex, long-lived human settlements

The pot sherds illustrating this story were found at the Açutuba II site

PHOTO (LEFT): ©GALEN ROWELL/CORBIS; (RIGHT): JAMES PETERSEN in lower Negro, Brazil.

Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 15 PHOTO: MICHAEL HECKENBERGER

Villagers wear Atugua masks in a Kuikuro Village in this 1993 photo taken in Brazil.

that left a subtle but increasingly unmistak- and vice versa. But ecologists, economists, able mark on their environment. This more anthropologists and archaeologists all look accurate picture may shed light on the at their subjects at very different scales and region’s future development path based on formulate their models accordingly, which its current social and economic realities. makes translation difficult. “We have to get Close to 20 physicists, economists, cul- our scales comparable,” says Gumerman. tural anthropologists, archaeologists, and “We have to combine them. That’s where computer scientists met on the island to the computer modelers”—which made up discuss recent research into how past and roughly a fifth of the Florianopolis group— present indigenous populations in the “came in.” Neotropics altered the diverse yet fragile “Part of the goal was to have people surroundings. “We wanted to examine the from different communities talk to each relationship between environmental com- other—mostly archaeologists and ecolo- plexity and the development of social gists,” says co-organizer Steve Lansing, complexity,” says co-organizer George professor of anthropology at the Gumerman, SFI external professor and for- University of Arizona and SFI research mer interim president of the School of professor. “We’re tribal,” he says, referring American Research. to the way specialists in a field spend Another purpose was also at work in much of their time with their own col- the meeting. The group hoped to find ways leagues. “We haven’t talked to each other in which historical models may inform our much.” Now they are. understanding of present-day interactions This new spirit of collaboration has between societies and the environment, already resulted in a shift in thinking

16 Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 THIS NEW SPIRIT OF COLLABORATION HAS ALREADY RESULTED IN A SHIFT IN THINKING ABOUT THE PREHISTORY OF AMAZONIA.

about the prehistory of Amazonia. In the national governments they spawned. past decade, the stereotypical idea of tropi- Discussions about the Xingu focused on cal Latin America as ecologically pristine how sedentary populations managed to sus- throughout most of its history has fallen out tain both themselves and their environment. of favor. “When I was in graduate school,” The recent discovery of terra preta or dark says Gumerman, “the prevailing thought earth soils, adds fuel to the debate. While was that ‘high’ civilization started in the archaeological remains don’t tend to last Andean highlands and moved down to low- long in the warm, humid environment— lands, but because of the depauperate envi- thus few have been found—in the past ronment, it couldn’t maintain social com- decade, patches of darker, more fertile soils plexity. Lately, though, it’s been shown that have been detected throughout the region, complex societies did form in the lowlands, often by remote sensing. It’s unclear but they collapsed.” whether these are the product of indigenous Evidence continues to mount showing soil management or simply the byproduct of that agrarian cultures thrived in the Amazon human settlements, but both explanations during much of the Holocene epoch (from suggest that larger populations stayed in about 10,000 years ago to the present), with specific locations for longer periods of time large-scale agriculture, orchards, and fish- than was once thought. eries, but these had largely vanished by the Past landscape signatures have also arrival of Europeans. “It looks like things helped researchers determine that the next were a lot more complicated and interesting riverine zone, the Central Amazon Basin, than we suspected,” says Lansing. may have held communities as large as those For the workshop, four geographical in the Xingu as early as 500 BC. The wide- zones—three in Brazil and one in Central spread use of polychrome ceramics (which America—were selected based on the don’t travel well) by AD 400 suggested that amount of information available on each. fish, manioc, and other dietary staples were “There is very little archaeological data for so much of the Amazon Basin,” says Gumerman. “We tried to find target areas that had the most archaeological, cultural, and environmental data available. Each “tar- get zone” was assigned its own subset of researchers, who met as a group and also gathered with other groups. Rivers defined two of the target zones in Brazil. Recent evidence suggests that the upper drainage of the Rio Xingu in the southern Amazon Basin may have held towns of 5,000 people, with complex social organization, by at least AD 1000. Unlike other Amazon regions, the ethnographic record in this area is more continuous and less interrupted by physical contact with Spanish and Portuguese settlers and the

Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 17 THE SAMBAQUI BUILT BURIAL MOUNDS FOR UP TO 8,000 YEARS, AN EXCEPTIONALLY LONG DURATION FOR AN AMAZONIAN CULTURE, WHICH MAKES THEM AN EXCELLENT EXAMPLE OF STABILITY AND SUSTAINABILITY FOR THE REGION.

abundant enough for larger, more permanent set- tlements to evolve. Discussions about this zone

PHOTO: BRIAN HECKENBERGER emphasized the possibility that, based on the availability of resources and ongoing social or environmental changes, the inhabitants might have repeatedly shifted from hunting and forag- ing to fishing and agriculture. In the third region, shell mounds up to 22 meters high offer clues to the past. The rich boundary environment inhabited by the Sambaqui peoples of coastal Brazil contains many of the mounds, which are also found as far north as Florida. They were once thought to be simply casual deposits of debris, but more recent archaeological evidence suggests that the piles were built deliberately of uneaten shellfish and other marine life to bury community mem- bers. The practice was preceded by feasting, and suggests that important, recurrent events prompted the community to rebury several indi- viduals together. The Sambaqui built burial mounds for up to 8,000 years, an exceptionally long duration for an Amazonian culture, which makes them an excellent example of stability and sustainability for the region. It’s unclear why they eventually passed on, but their passage may have been associated with the arrival of Tupi-Guarani

PHOTO: JAMES PETERSEN speakers, who brought their ritualized warfare practices to the Amazon Basin by AD 1000 or Top: The Açutuba II Site in the lower Negro of Brazil shows terra even earlier. preta—dark earth—over an ancient plaza area. Researchers considered the fourth zone, the Above: Researchers found pot sherds and other artifacts in this Yucatan Peninsula of Central America occupied excavation site at Açutuba II. by the lowland Maya, to be similar enough to

18 Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 the other three to fit into the larger discussion, ning separate meetings with each other, to work but distinct enough to serve as a yardstick for on problems in specific areas.” comparison. While it received similar rainfall to “Too many scientists nowadays find reasons the other zones, the natural limestone platform why we can’t do something,” he adds. “It would that stretched across what is now southern be easy to say, ‘It’s a huge area—far too compli- Mexico, Guatemala, and northern Belize cated.’ We come at questions from different per- accommodated fertile soils, allowing agricultur- spectives, all trained in our own disciplines. al production on a much larger scale. Although Maybe we can’t get answers out of this, but surface water tended to drain away through the what’s wonderful about SFI is you can say, ‘This porous and pockmarked terrain, the Maya obvi- may be a crap shoot—but what if we win?’” t ously figured out how to overcome this envi- ronmental hurdle, as their peak population Julian Smith is a writer and photographer specializing in sci- reached as high as 2,000,000 during AD ence and travel. He is based in Santa Fe. This article is 100–900. based on a workshop report by Vernon Scarborough. Why this highly com- plex culture suddenly col- lapsed around AD 900, leaving huge ruins to be swallowed by the jungle, is one of the great ques- tions in archaeology. Warfare, the exhaustion of farmland, and drought may have contributed. In the Florianopolis meeting, talks on the Maya focused on how important the concentration of resources (through the construction of ancient roads and the storage of foodstuffs) was in fostering the develop- ment of the complex PHOTO: MICHAEL HECKENBERGER Maya society. “The Brazil meeting was just a first step,” Above: From the air, this says Lansing, “a success in some ways and less Kuikuro village of Ipatse in in others. It exposed real gaps in our approach Brazil is organized around to modeling, but it did create the beginning of a a broad plaza. dialogue to be continued not just at SFI but Left: This overview map more broadly. Seeds have been planted.” A shows the ancient settle- smaller meeting focused on modeling, held in ment of Heulugihiti, with Tucson in mid-December, was the first spin-off, a GPS mapped road and but likely not the last. plaza curbs or berms. “The real strength of the workshop was that researchers found areas where they could over- lap,” says Gumerman. “You had computer mod- elers from southern Brazil meeting archaeolo- gists from Arizona. Individual teams are plan-

Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 19 Deception: What Lies Beneath

By Brooke Harrington

Recent psychological studies of what our respective fields have deception indicate that in the course of a to say about deception, with day, the average individual tells two to three lies. the goal of structuring the dis- Though rates of lying generally decrease with the parate sources of knowledge closeness of a relationship, people report lying in into a more organized whole. one-third to one-half the interactions they have The benefits of a broadly cross- with their mothers and their lovers. The preva- disciplinary effort were quickly lence of deception in everyday life is extraordi- apparent, as the biologist found nary, particularly given the negative valence analogies and challenges for his attached to lying within human societies. work in the presentations by The complex relationship between people humanities scholars, and an and lies has been a topic of interest in a wide archaeologist discovered useful

“IF YOU TELL THE TRUTH YOU DON’T HAVE TO REMEMBER ANYTHING.” — Mark Twain

variety of scholarly disciplines, from the life sci- models for his research in a talk by an econo- ences, to the social sciences, to the humanities. mist. Indeed, by the end of the workshop, the But despite the wealth of accumulated knowl- elementary questions which had framed our edge, our understanding of lying (and deception meeting—“What or who deceives?” and “Why generally) has remained fragmented. To amelio- do some entities deceive, and how?”—had given rate this problem, 16 scholars met at SFI last rise to new questions, such as “Can we create spring for a workshop broadly titled, models of deception that include both the inten- “Deception: Methods, Motives, Contexts and tional forms—like lying—and the unintentional Consequences.” The participants included psy- forms, such as those created by protective cam- chologists, a biologist, statisticians, a philoso- ouflage in animals, or self-delusion in humans?” pher, a poet, and an English literature specialist. We convened, appropriately enough, on the We came together to review and compare day American pop culture celebrates deception:

20 Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 The Cheater with Ace of Diamonds by Georges de LaTour. Oil on canvas. (1635) PHOTO © ERICH LESSING/ART RESOURCE

April Fool’s Day. Bill Miller—chairman of the deceived as defining features of the American Santa Fe Institute Board of Trustees and CEO national character. We could hardly have asked and chief investment officer of workshop spon- for better auspices. sor Legg Mason Capital Management—pointed out that our meeting date also coincided with a Why Don’t Chimps Lie More? literary event of particular significance to the The workshop opened by considering, from the workshop. It was the 148th anniversary of the perspective of biology, the limits to deception in publication of Herman Melville’s The Confidence the animal kingdom. Carl Bergstrom, a theoretical Man, which treats deception and the will to be biologist from the University of Washington, led

Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 21 “IN HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS, KINDNESS AND LIES ARE WORTH A THOUSAND TRUTHS.” — Graham Greene

off by asking why such a wide range of organ- practice of small children in some families, who isms—from bacteria to chimpanzees—share create a distraction (“Look! The dog’s on fire!”) truthful information despite conflicting interests. in order to scarf their siblings’ desserts. Even the In other words, why don’t animals exploit and sentinel birds’ strategy of falsifying only one- undermine communication by sending mislead- seventh of their signals makes sense: as most ing or manipulative signals more often? small children learn, deception strategies only Bergstrom’s questions were particularly work long-term if deployed in limited quantity. provocative, coming as they did on the heels of Given the apparent rationality of deception Murray Gell-Mann’s comments the previous as an adaptive strategy, Bergstrom asked us to evening. Gell-Mann told us that sentinel birds consider why animal communication is general- employ deception in exactly one-seventh of ly reliable. Drawing on game theory, he their signals to each other—a behavior that explained how “costly signaling models” illus- appears to be motivated by the birds’ very sen- trate the value of truthful communication. In a sible desire to distract their fellow sentinels from talk punctuated by vivid illustrations of animal resources, such as the appearance of a tasty signaling behavior—including octopi bending morsel. This is reminiscent of the tried-and-true their bodies into perfect simulacra of sole and other creatures—Bergstrom launched an animated discus- sion about the role of inten- tionality in deception, and asked whether we could create models of deception that would encompass both the intentional and unintentional varieties: a topic we revisited throughout the weekend.

Desiring Deception Stanford University statistician Persi Diaconis had a distinctive take on this issue, based on his experience as a professional magician. Diaconis—whose interest in deception provided

KNOPF PUBLISHING the inspiration for the work- shop—observed that people This photograph, taken in 1948 when communism was born in Czechoslovakia, was often want to be deceived. In used extensively in propaganda. In the first rendition, Vladimir Clementis (far left) has other words, we accept the fre- placed a hat on the head of Klement Gottwald, the country’s new Communist leader. quency of deception in social In the second, Clementis has been removed from the photo. Charged with treason, he life because we like it that way. had been hanged. “All that remains of Clementis is the cap on Gottwald’s head,“ wrote Sometimes we find it enter- Milan Kundera in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. taining or pleasantly diverting,

22 Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 as when theatergoers suspend disbelief to watch Peter Pan “fly” across the stage or to watch a magician pull a rabbit out of a hat. Sometimes too, as philosopher Sissela Bok of Harvard University reminded us, we find decep- tion a comfort, a palliative for our suffering. Bok’s talk reviewed the history of placebo administration, reminding us that—virtually unique in the realm of medical ethics—placebos involve a sanctioned deception. In the use of placebos, which dates back thousands of years, patients are given “treatments” by a trusted heal- er—usually a doctor—who does not tell them the true nature of what they have been given. Such deception is often conducted with the complicity of the patient’s family: a conspiracy of kindness, thought to spare the patient need- less suffering. Should either consent or intent matter in our understanding and moral evaluations of decep- tion? Gary Urton, Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Archaeology at Harvard University, posed this question by presenting us with evidence from his long-term study of the Inca Empire at the time of first contact with the Spanish. In a move OF THE SKEPTISEUM PHOTO COURTESY reminiscent of the sentinel birds’ strategy, the Inca fought for survival in part through intermit- In the early days of photography, “spirit photographs,” produced by tent use of false signals. Using their “khipu,” a spiritualists, did not exist. Not until the double exposure was made remarkably sophisticated form of accounting possible did such illusory images appear. based on knotted strings, the Inca mislead the Spanish by understating the real extent of Notre Dame, drew on classics of modern litera- wealth and resources held within the Incan ture—including To Kill a Mockingbird, Glengarry Empire. Though their effort failed to distract Glen Ross, and The Crucible—to show how or discourage the Spanish colonial effort, deception depends on a climate of fear in order Urton’s research—like Bok’s and Diaconis’s— to survive and thrive. Those characters who foregrounded some unexpectedly positive and insist on truthfulness are rare and always at risk adaptive aspects of deception. of punishment—or even death—in the name of preserving the regime of deception. A Climate of Distrust Harvard University economist Richard In contrast, other presentations highlighted the Zeckhauser—in research conducted jointly with corrosive and non-adaptive aspects of decep- his Kennedy School of Government colleague tion: the ways in which social life, individuals, Fred Schauer—showed how deception can infil- and political freedoms suffer when lies go trate and damage social interactions through the unchecked. For instance, Columbia University seemingly innocuous form of partial truths. sociologist David Stark showed us how political Deception, Zeckhauser argued, actually comes in operatives doctor photographs in order to fur- two forms: lying and paltering. While lying ther deceptive political agendas, creating a cli- involves wholesale fabrication, paltering employs mate of paranoia and distrust. Ellen O’Connor, a only the truth as its raw material—strategically professor of communication at the University of distorting the truth or conveying only selective

Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 23 favorable information. Yet paltering has the same gy at the University of San Francisco who has motivations as lying, and the same potential also studied the “Truth Wizards,” addressed the consequences for recipients’ beliefs and actions. “why” question: That is, why can’t we all be Its basis in truth—however distorted—makes it Wizards? Why are most people so bad at detect- difficult to identify palters, even when all infor- ing deception, especially since such a deficit mation comes to light. As Zeckhauser pointed would seem to be a significant liability from the out, the truthful basis of palterers’ claims gives point of view of adaptation and natural selection? them “plausible deniability,” making it difficult to O’Sullivan’s talk focused on systemic cognitive punish them, either directly or through reputa- errors and self-delusion motives, both of which tion losses. This difficulty makes paltering can be adaptive in many circumstances. Indeed, arguably worse than lying; at a minimum, it she noted that research on “positive psychology” degrades the quality of social interaction, creat- shows that failure to spot lies, or a willingness to ing a climate of distrust in the truth itself. deceive oneself, can contribute to a positive, opti- mistic outlook, and thus a longer, happier life. Truth Wizards In this regard, we are aided and abetted by Given these hazards, it was somewhat surprising modern communication technologies. Research to learn just how vulnerable humans are to being by Cornell University Communication Professor deceived. As several workshop participants Jeff Hancock suggests that the telephone is the showed, the vast majority of people are virtually medium of choice for deception. While email unable to detect deception when it is literally might seem like the likeliest mechanism for staring them in the face. This is all the more deception, Hancock said, it also carries with it a extraordinary because liars have a common set sense of greater permanence or commitment—

“DURATION IS NOT A TEST OF TRUTH OR FALSEHOOD.” — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

of involuntary facial movements—particularly in because it is in writing and often backed up— the small muscles around the eyes and mouth— compared to the ephemeral and usually that should make them easy to spot. unrecorded remarks exchanged in conversation. With training, we can learn to spot these Finally, telephone communications provide a facial cues, as we learned from Mark Frank, a veil of sorts for would-be deceivers, shielding professor of communications at Rutgers many of their non-verbal cues (like the hard-to- University. Frank does research on the physiolo- control facial muscles that Frank and O’Sullivan gy of deception in humans, drawing in part on a discussed) from detection. group he called the “Truth Wizards”: 32 men and women with an extraordinary ability to Heroic Liars detect when others are lying to them. Members The workshop closed with a panel that—some- of this group, culled from psychological testing what uncharacteristically for SFI gatherings— on thousands of ordinary people, are diverse in invoked the perspective of the humanities. It every sense, with little in common except this turned out to be an ideal way in which to unusual power of perception. Using the findings explore the ambiguities and complexities that from the group, and from his other research, had been suggested by the other talks. As biolo- Frank trains law enforcement and counter-terror- gist Carl Bergstrom noted: “Bringing the conver- ism experts to see the involuntary physical signs sation around to the humanities in the closing of deception that most of us fail to notice in sections of the workshop helped us come back daily interactions. to the fullness of the phenomenon which Maureen O’Sullivan, a professor of psycholo- aroused our wonder in the first place. It was

24 Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 similar to the way that good naturalists can help us return to the whole organism once we become overwhelmed by the reductionism of molecular biology, and as such made a deeply valuable contribution.” Tom Lutz—a professor of English at the University of Iowa, and author of a well-known book on the history of emotion—drew from a combination of literary theory and autobiogra- phy to explore a question raised by several of the other talks: does deception require intent? In recounting his own history, Lutz delved into a number of ambiguities involved in deception, including cases in which people tell “honest lies”: making statements that they believe to be true at the time, but later recognize as false. As a result, Lutz argued, some emotional displays can be both honest and deceptive at the same time. Poet Ken Fields, who teaches in the English department at Stanford University, closed the workshop with the observation that while deception is often condemned in modern Western societies, ancient cultures often made liars their heroes, and even their gods. What does it tell us about the ancient Greeks, Fields asked, that their pantheon included a god of deception (Hermes), and that their best-known epic hero—Odysseus—was lionized for his cunning tricks? As Fields pointed out, among the most common of the Homeric epithets used to describe Odysseus was polymêtis, signifying “much cunning intelligence.” Odysseus himself frequently celebrated his deceptions of others, PRESS PHOTO: ASSOCIATED as when he said, “My heart within laughed/ at how my name and faultless cunning had fooled Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina and other him.” These examples bear particular scrutiny, notable institutions believe that use of functional magnetic Fields noted, given the purported embedded- resonance imaging (fMRI) technology could prove more accurate ness of modern American political, philosophi- than polygraph tests in determining when a person is lying. cal, and ethical reasoning in the Greco-Roman tradition. contradictions, and ambiguities surrounding the Such observations deserve fuller exploration, phenomenon. and will likely get it since many of the partici- You can read more about the workshop, pants found that the workshop renewed their including participant biographies and supple- passion for the subject. One of the most excit- mental material by accessing the workshop ing aspects was the common ground they website at found across widely divergent fields of study. http://discuss.santafe.edu/deception. t Ultimately, the workshop laid the foundations for a kind of “complexity theory of decep- Brooke Harrington, Ph.D., is assistant professor of sociology tion”—one that acknowledges the many facets, and public policy at Brown University.

Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 25 PHOTO: MAUREEN M-BARRACLOUGH

26 Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 Outsmarting AIDS By Janet Yagoda Shagam

An interdisciplinary team of Santa Fe While Mariam (last name unavailable) was pregnant, Institute scientists is working on strategies to devel- she and her husband—both HIV positive—participated op an HIV vaccine to overcome the challenges of viral diver- in an initiative to prevent mother-to-child-transmission sity. Bette Korber, an immunologist with the Theoretical of AIDS. Here she holds her son Godwill in their Biology and Biophysics Group at Los Alamos National home outside Kampala, Uganda. He was born HIV Laboratory (LANL), and Tanmoy Bhattacharya, a LANL high free and continues to be healthy. energy physicist, are using computational strategies to The background image shows the phylogenetic (or design vaccines. As Korber explained in a recent SFI joint evolutionary) relationship between the various sub- Business Network and Board of Trustees Seminar, the failure types of the HIV-1 M group. It illustrates the extreme of current vaccine production methods to produce effective diversity among the currently circulating varieties of protection against HIV shows a need to rethink vaccine dis- HIV, and that HIV evolution proceeded in many covery strategies. directions from the originating central strain. This Their approach, in addition to addressing human creates a clear impediment to development of an immunodeficiency virus (HIV), may also become the basis effective vaccine. for developing vaccines against other lethal pathogens such as hepatitis C and Ebola. By using computational methods to design artificial proteins that are central or ancestral to current strains, Korber and Bhattacharya hope to outsmart the ever-changing virus that causes AIDS. If they succeed, not only will the world have an HIV vaccine, but theirs will also be the first computationally designed synthetic vaccine. In her presentation, Korber gave a sobering view of the impact HIV has on public health. “With over 40 million

Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 27 To give an idea how fast HIV changes, Korber com- pared it to the influenza virus. In a recent review pub- lished in the British Medical Bulletin, the researchers wrote, “The diversity of influenza sequences world- wide in any one flu season appears to be roughly com- parable to the diversity of HIV sequences found within any single individual at one time point.” Vaccines, by presenting the immune system with specific viral proteins, either on particle surfaces or as isolated proteins in solution, stimulate an immune system response. Because HIV surface proteins con- stantly change, the immune system cannot make an effective protective response against rapidly evolving new viruses. HIV infections last on average 10 years before one has AIDS signs and symptoms. This is ample time for unique mutations to develop and accu- mulate in each infected individual. This immune eva- sion and evolution within each person, and subse- quent transmission of variant viruses, ultimately leads to the extraordinary diversity of HIV found at the population level. Together, Korber and Bhattacharya, along with col- leagues from Duke University Medical Center and the University of Alabama, Birmingham, have created an artificial consensus protein by computationally select- PHOTO: ROBERT MILLER PHOTO: ROBERT

“THE DIVERSITY OF INFLUENZA SEQUENCES WORLD-WIDE IN ANY ONE FLU SEASON APPEARS TO BE ROUGHLY COMPARABLE TO THE DIVERSITY OF HIV SEQUENCES FOUND WITHIN ANY SINGLE INDIVIDUAL AT ONE TIME POINT.” people worldwide infected with HIV,” she said, “AIDS ing the most common amino acid at most positions in is destroying whole societies.” She cited statistics: The all viral subtypes and testing it in preliminary vaccina- situation is particularly devastating in developing tion studies on small animals. In a sense, this is analo- nations where as many as 25 to 40 percent of the adult gous to determining a biochemical or physiologic population live with HIV. In South Africa, which has “common denominator.” By taking this approach, one of the fastest expanding HIV epidemics in the Korber explains, “we use data rather than the environ- world, over 6.3 million people have the disease and ment for optimizing genetic fitness.” one out of every three pregnant women is HIV posi- So far the results are promising. The artificial pro- tive. At the end of 2003, nearly 1.2 million people in teins are biologically functional. They cross-react with the United States had been diagnosed with HIV. patient sera containing multiple viral subtypes and Unlike viral pathogens that cause diseases such as they stimulate antibody production and cytotoxic T- polio and hepatitis B, HIV changes so rapidly that vac- cell responses in mice and guinea pigs. “Our colleagues cines cannot protect from the ever-expanding number of antigenically distinct strains. To complicate matters Above: SFI Research Professors Tanmoy Bhattacharya, a further, the viruses within each patient eventually Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) high energy develop into a unique collection of HIV substrains or physicist, and Bette Korber, a LANL immunologist with the quasispecies, and divergent viruses can infect the same Theoretical Biology and Biophysics Group, use computational person and recombine to create distinctive new forms. strategies to design vaccines.

28 Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 are moving forward to begin testing this vaccine in ably more than a theoretical puzzle or an academic macaques in a direct comparison with conventional exercise. The origins of her passion and perseverance natural protein vaccines,” says Korber. The team for HIV research goes back to her graduate school days hopes the results will be good enough to eventually at Caltech and a housemate who died of AIDS. In an begin small-scale human vaccine trials. understated, yet revealing statement, Korber says, “He As a prelude to this work, Korber and Bhattacharya taught me a lot.” To overcome her frustration and her have used parallel computing tools to reveal the evolu- grief, she left strictly physiological immunology and tionary origins of HIV. Many believe that HIV arose took a postdoctoral position in a laboratory doing retro- fairly recently, but their model suggests that HIV was virus research as her way to “do science in service.” quietly living among us for at least 50 years prior to In 2004, Korber received the Ernest Orlando the discovery of AIDS in 1981. There are several exper- Lawrence award for her work in delineating HIV imentally proven cases that support the view that HIV genetics and the development of the Los Alamos HIV was with us prior to the discovery of AIDS as a dis- database. In addition to a citation signed by the ease; the earliest case comes from a frozen blood plas- Secretary of Energy and a gold medal bearing the like- ma sample taken from an adult male living in the ness of Ernest Orlando Lawrence, the award also Democratic Republic of the Congo (Zaire) in 1959. As includes a $50,000 prize. people who die of AIDS die of an opportunistic infec- In keeping with her philosophy of doing science for tion that can manifest in many ways, it was probably the benefit of others, Korber used the award money, difficult to detect AIDS in the human population in the along with donations from family and friends, to build early phases of the epidemic. an AIDS orphanage in South Africa. “Now,” she says, However, Korber and Bhattacharya’s model pushes “one hundred sixty five children have a place to live HIV emergence back to an even earlier date. Using the and people to take care of them.” t global HIV sequence database developed and main- tained by Korber at the Theoretical Biology and Janet Yagoda Shagam, Ph.D. is a freelance medical and science Biophysics Group (LANL), they used parallel comput- writer living in Albuquerque. ing methods to “clock” genetic changes back to a common viral ancestor. Their computa- tional model correctly predict- ed two historical data points— the 1959 blood plasma sample and the HIV strains present at the beginning of a well-docu- mented Thai epidemic in 1986- 88. Prediction of these two “test points,” supports the validity of their assumptions, computational methods, and an emergence date that, according to Korber and Bhattacharya, could be around 1930, as early as 1915, or as late as 1940. Using the tools they developed for this study to model the emergence of HIV, they were able to create

model ancestral sequences that PHOTO: MAUREEN M-BARRACLOUGH they could ultimately use for HIV vaccine design. Villagers stroll home from church Sunday morning on a street leading to the small fish- For Korber, HIV is consider- ing town of Gaba on the shores of Lake Victoria in Uganda.

Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 29 THETHE FUTUREFUTURE OFOF PHOTO © ALAMY IMAGES AGENT-BASED MODELING

30 Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 by Janet Stites

In the early 1960s, mathematician and SFI’s role in it, as well as give a blueprint Benoit Mandelbrot began to study the for the future of the modeling approach. prices of a number of commodities, of railroad Leaders in the field who spoke at the event securities, and of diverse interest rates. included Prediction Company co-founder Although the nature of how the products were and SFI researcher Doyne Farmer, Brandeis’s sold varied, he found the prices followed scal- Blake LeBaron, MIT’s Andrew Lo, and Yale’s ing laws; that is, when the price movements Shyam Sunder. were observed at different time intervals, they As computers become more and more showed similar patterns. Like fractals, which he sophisticated and markets continue to spew out named and made famous as modeling tools, an increasing amount of data on a daily basis, these price series showed structure and self- researchers are eagerly collecting similarity at different scales. data sets, and people in the finan- At the time, his findings were summarily cial industry are taking notice. dismissed, even disputed, as they contradicted Many suspect that if economists popular economic theory that prices on finan- can build computer models illu- cial markets followed the toss of a coin. minating patterns in various “Hardly anybody knew what I was talking financial markets—particularly about,” he says now from his position as mapping volatility—investors Sterling Professor of Mathematical Sciences could minimize risk and reap the at Yale University. “And if they found I was rewards. But the task is daunting and right, they didn’t publish it because it wasn’t still in its infancy. fashionable.” The models may not be able to prove or dis- Mandelbrot continued to expand his work prove an economic theory, but the practice can and by the 1980s other studies began to appear distill a certain aspect of a theory or illuminate confirming his earlier findings. His 1963 paper a single mechanism. Most importantly, the on cotton pricing resurfaced as his best-known models allow economists to study volatility, work on the topic and became the inspiration something long overlooked and long dismissed for modern-day agent-based modeling, particu- in terms of recognizing patterns. As Mandelbrot larly for the financial markets. has written, “If the weather is moderate 95 per- In October, Mandelbrot opened a day-long cent of the time, can the mariner afford to session in New York City on “Agent Models in ignore the possibility of a typhoon?” Financial Economics,” hosted by SFI, Credit While financial gain is a clear motivator for Suisse First Boston, and Legg Mason Capital modeling financial markets, researchers outside Management. The seminar served as a time to of the commercial world are interested in the reflect on the history of agent-based modeling, data and patterns they reveal for reasons other OF FINANCIAL MARKETS

Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 31 than potential wealth. For one, econo- modeling. “The field is very much all mists such as LeBaron, who has been over the place,” says LeBaron. He involved in modeling since the early notes that researchers tend to focus on 1990s when he spearheaded the eco- one aspect of the market to model, nomics program at SFI, believes key whether it be prices, trading volume, debates in finance, such as those on or order flow. market efficiency and rationality and LeBaron’s own work has shown the role behavior plays in decision mak- how agent-based computational mar- ing, might be deflated by analyzing the kets can generate patterns in liquidity “IF THE WEATHER data of the markets. From the pure sci- and how these patterns are connected IS MODERATE 95 entific perspective, particularly in regard to generating realistic dynamics in both PERCENT OF THE to evolutionary biology, financial mar- price and trading volume time series. kets provide a good approximation to a Over the years, he has seen some unex- TIME, CAN THE crude fitness measure through wealth pected results. “What I’ve seen is a ten- MARINER AFFORD or return performance. dency for the agents to occasionally Doyne Farmer says researchers often concentrate on a small number of TO IGNORE THE use modeling as a way to try to under- strategies,” he says. “When this happens POSSIBILITY OF A stand statistical properties about the it is hard to find other people to trade TYPHOON?” market that don’t involve things you with and the market becomes unstable. can profit from, such as how big a price Somebody needs to take the opposite change can be, but not whether it goes side of the trade.” As a result, prices and up or down. trading volume may drop dramatically. Early models, developed in the late It is during these times, LeBaron posits, 1980s and early 1990s included SFI’s that you see high volatility, big changes own Santa Fe Artificial Stock Market in pricing, and crashes. (SF-ASM), the idea for which was fos- The “agent” part of agent-based tered by economist Brian Arthur and modeling can have many characteris- genetic algorithm developer John tics. In some models agents are pro- Holland, who reached out to physicist grammed as a series of “if–then” state- Richard Palmer and computer scientist ments: If A happens…Do B; If C hap- Paul Tayler (LeBaron joined the team in pens…Do A. Others use genetic algo- 1993). SF-ASM was one of the first rithms (GAs), allowing them to learn studies to challenge the idea that finan- from their errors and evolve. Others use cial markets are in equilibrium. neural networks. Ultimately the model was merged with According to Farmer, the big chal- artificial intelligence guru Christopher lenge for agent-based modeling is this: Langton’s SWARM project. While the Can it work well within the classical SF-ASM project is currently dormant, scientific method? “It’s hard to match the SWARM version of the model is up the model to the real world,” he still available and people continue to says. “When you build the model, experiment with it. Other models of you’re forced to make a lot of ad-hoc that time came from French economist assumptions about how the agents Alan Kirman, German economist behave. Sometimes these assumptions Thomas Lux, and the team of Haim are far from reality.” Levy, Moshe Levy, and Sorin Solomon. Farmer uses the example of building Twenty years after the first models, a simulation of traffic in a particular there is not one prevailing method of city. “It’s easy to model the streets and

32 Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 PHOTO © ALAMY IMAGES the stop signs or take into account the what price to pay.” As extreme as these speed of a car on the freeway versus assumptions are, they produced results Trading at the London Stock the speed of a car on a side street,” he that agree with the real data in many Exchange: Data allows SFI says. “It’s harder to determine how respects. “This shows that there are Research Professor Doyne people make decisions, such as why many aspects of market behavior Farmer and his team to work they take a side street on a particular whose explanation does not depend on with a complete record of day instead of the freeway.” rationality or even intelligent decision actions by the traders. For his latest project, which models making—they just depend on the mar- price formation, Farmer chose to work ket structure,” he says. with data from the London Stock To improve on these results, Exchange because it contains a com- Farmer uses an approach that he plete record of actions by the traders as calls “empirical behavioral modeling,” well as their effect on prices. He and which lies between the standard his team began by assuming that the econometric and microeconomic traders had “zero intelligence” (ZI), an approaches to model building. approach initially developed by Yale’s “Instead of imposing a preconceived Shyam Sunder and New York model of human behavior, such as University’s Dan Gode in 1989. rationality,” he says, “we look carefully “To get a feeling for how the trading at the data to find behavioral patterns.” process interacts with people’s deci- Farmer and his team then simulate the sions, we began by assuming that peo- market based on the patterns, and ple are stupid and behave randomly,” make predictions about how prices says Farmer. “The agents in the model will behave. “Note that we aren’t try- randomly place orders, flipping coins ing to predict the market,” he says. to decide whether to buy or sell and “We’re just trying to predict system

Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 33 IMAGING: DAVID DEWEY IMAGING: DAVID

Enhanced Mandlebrot sets properties, such as why prices fluctuate The students found several surpris- depict complex geometric more in one market than they do in ing outcomes, including that short and another.” The resulting models make simple trading strategies did well in the shapes. Buried deep within very good predictions about price market, not because they were smart in these mathematical forms volatility and the difference between the sense of being sophisticated, but are self-similar "fractal" pat- buying and selling prices. because they were “there” all the time terns that emulate shapes Yale economist Shyam Sunder uses and were fast. What’s more, markets found at higher levels. the zero intelligence model to try to populated entirely by zero-intelligence Natural systems often dis- understand if there is intelligence in not traders, who had no ability to anticipate play similar behavior; for being intelligent. “A degree of random- or strategize, were at least as efficient in example, a coastline has a ness may give one a strategic advan- aggregate, doing as well, or better than, similar shape whether we tage,” Sunder says. “If I knew in a game the strategies devised by students which view it from outer space or of tennis that every time my opponent had been based on their own ideas. zoom in on just a few feet lobbed the ball to the baseline, my best Nearly two decades after the “pro- of beach front. shot is forehand down the line, and I gram trading” scare of 1987, the use of continued to follow that rule, he could technology on Wall Street has not less- figure it out and react accordingly. If I ened. Sunder warns, however, that introduced a degree of randomness, I before we can build a proper model, might do better.” we need more data and we need to Sunder’s initial foray into using learn how to map expectations. He agent-based modeling to better under- plans to continue to pursue the idea stand the financial markets came in that randomness confers advantage by 1989 when he had his MBA students continuing to work with zero intelli- teamed with computer science stu- gence models. One advantage of his dents to try to determine if, in fact, “keep the agents simple” strategy is that program trading (that is, trades made he doesn’t need additional computing automatically by pre-programmed power or data sets. “I can pretty much computers) had caused the stock mar- do what I need on my desktop com- ket crash of 1987. He was especially puter,” he says. interested in the problem because the While there is no comprehensive list idea that it had done so threatened to of economists and scientists doing stifle the promise of technology in the agent-based modeling of the financial financial markets. markets, there are those whose work

34 Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 STUDENTS FOUND THAT SHORT AND SIMPLE TRADING STRATEGIES DID WELL IN THE MARKET, NOT BECAUSE THEY WERE SMART IN THE SENSE OF BEING SOPHISTICATED, BUT BECAUSE THEY WERE “THERE” ALL THE TIME AND WERE FAST.

has, and continues to, contribute to the predict how the exchange’s plan to foundation of the field. Teams like move from denominating shares in six- Haim Levy, Moshe Levy, and Sorin teenths of a dollar to dividing its dollars Solomon have gotten much attention into cents would affect trading. for using “microscopic simulation” to According to a report in The Economist, model markets, a methodology that was Darley’s predictions were not perfect developed to solve physics problems. (his agents traded at larger volumes of The model uses a computer to represent shares than real people did), but some and keep track of individual elements in of his other forecasts were accurate. order to investigate otherwise As the amount of data increases, the intractable complex systems. potential of computer modeling will Another researcher who has been a grow exponentially. “There pioneer in modeling financial markets is will be more features and economist Alan Kirman, currently at data to estimate various Princeton’s Institute for Advanced parameters and models Study, on leave from the University of with,” LeBaron says. Marseilles. He develops models with “This is a big plus.” the underlying idea that agents in the In the meantime, markets meet each other and learn to researchers such as trade together. They imitate each other Farmer, LeBaron, and and are influenced by what others Sunder struggle to find the expect. “The fundamental difficulty in tools to make their model legitimate, modeling financial markets is that you whether they be data or computer cannot treat the traders as one glorified power. “The big needs now are in soft- average individual,” he says. “You have ware,” LeBaron says. “I still dream of to handle the fact that the behavior of the ultimate software package to model the aggregate is basically different from with and share pieces with others. It that of the individuals that make it up.” doesn’t exist.” Not yet anyway. t The modeling work of former SFI graduate student Vince Darley, of Janet Stites is a freelance writer specializing in London-based consulting firm Eurobios science, technology, and finance. She has written UK, gained attention when he was for The New York Times, OMNI Magazine and asked by NASDAQ to build a model to Fortune Small Business. She lives in New York City.

Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 35 CommunitySFI

Wednesday, February 22, 7Lectures p.m., amount of high-level research, the nature of the chem- Lensic Theater istry used by the LUCA remains largely unknown. Co-sponsored with the School of American Research Consideration of the mechanism whereby early small- The “Hobbit” of Flores Island: Body and Soul molecule chemistry may have changed into biochemistry Dean Falk, Hale G. Smith Professor and Chair, suggests that life may have been launched by processes Anthropology, Florida State University related to those used by cells today. If this is so, enzyme- With J. Stephen Lansing, Professor, University of Arizona like catalysts probably were involved. De Duve will dis- and Santa Fe Institute cuss the possibility that small peptides and other “multi- mers” may have played catalytic roles in an era before Scientists were shocked at the recent discovery of a large protein enzymes had formed, a view of the emer- miniature human species (LB 1, Homo floresiensis) that gence of life that he has pioneered. lived a mere 18,000 years ago on the Indonesian island of Flores. The most complete specimen is a three-foot tall Wednesday, May 10, 7:30 p.m., woman, nicknamed “Hobbit,” who had long arms, and a James A. Little Theater little ape-sized braincase. Associated archaeological evi- More than You Know: Finding Financial Wisdom in dence suggests that this tiny species fashioned sophisti- Unconventional Places cated tools, hunted miniature elephants, made fire, and Michael Mauboussin, Senior Vice President, Legg Mason cooked. How could this be, given its tiny brain? To glean Capital Management, Inc. details about its brain, an international team analyzed With John Miller, Professor, Carnegie Mellon University three-dimensional computed tomographic (3DCT) recon- and Santa Fe Institute structions of Hobbit’s internal braincase. Their findings have startling implications for the evolution of the brain Because most occupations encourage a degree of spe- and intelligence not just in hobbits, but throughout the cialization, most of us end up with pretty narrow slices human fossil record. of knowledge. For example, many economists base their models on rational investors or normal distributions Wednesday, April 5, 7:30 p.m., without looking at how the world really works. The core James A. Little Theater premise of this talk is simple to state but devilishly diffi- The Origin of Life cult to live: you will be a better investor, parent, friend— Christian de Duve, Nobel Laureate (Medicine 1974): person—if you approach problems from a multidiscipli- Founder, International Institute of Cellular and Molecular nary perspective. Mauboussin will discuss how lessons Pathology; Professor Emeritus, University of Louvain and from Babe Ruth, Tupperware parties, the Wright Rockefeller University Brothers, and ant colonies can make you a better deci- With D. Eric Smith, Professor, Santa Fe Institute sion maker.

The origin of life is generally taken to be the outcome of Wednesday, July 12, 7:30 p.m., progressive chemical complexification. This process pre- James A. Little Theater sumably led from small organic molecules, such as The Mother of Mass Extinctions: How Life on Earth amino acids, sugars, and nitrogenous bases, now known Nearly Ended 250 Million Years Ago to be produced on a large scale by cosmic chemistry, to Douglas Erwin, Professor at the Santa Fe Institute and an organism called the LUCA, or last universal common Senior Scientist, National Museum of Natural History, ancestor, from which all known living organisms have Smithsonian Institution been shown to be descendants. In spite of a considerable With David Krakauer, Professor, Santa Fe Institute

36 Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 During the greatest biodiversity crisis in the history of life malnourished children. Bt cotton will reduce pesticide some 250 million years ago, over 90 percent of all the use. Bt varieties will reduce fungal toxins in corn. But species in the oceans died off in just a few hundred thou- there are also warnings: Round-up Ready soybeans will sand years. Douglas Erwin, author of the new book require more herbicides. Pollen from Bt corn will kill Extinction! How Life on Earth Nearly Ended 250 Million gypsy moths. Gene flow from GM crops could decrease Years Ago discusses his research in China, South Africa, biodiversity. What are we to believe? This lecture exam- and the western U.S. in search of the causes and conse- ines the history of food crop modification, describes the quences of this great mass extinction. differences between previous and present methods of modifying food plants, and addresses food safety and Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, biodiversity concerns about GM foods and crops. September 12, 13, 14, 7:30 p.m., James A. Little Theater Wednesday, November 15, 7:30 p.m., Stanislaw Ulam Memorial Lectures: On Plants—From James A. Little Theater Genes to Genomes to GM Foods Forecasting Natural Disasters in the Chaotic and Nina Fedoroff, Evan Pugh Professor of Biology, Willaman Complex Earth Professor of Life Sciences, Pennsylvania State University; John Rundle, Interdisciplinary Professor of Physics, Civil External Professor, Santa Fe Institute. Fedoroff is co- Engineering and Geology; Director, Center for author (with Nancy Marie Brown) of Mendel in the Computational Science and Engineering Kitchen: A Scientist’s View of Genetically Modified Foods. With Geoffrey West, President and Distinguished Professor, Santa Fe Institute Tuesday, September 12: How Plants See, Feel, and Smell: the Perceptual Apparatus of the Plant Kingdom In the recent past we have seen the December 2004 Plants detect and respond to light, touch, gravity, humidi- Sumatra earthquake and tsunami; the August 2005 ty and the myriad chemicals they encounter in the air and Hurricane Katrina that destroyed New Orleans and the soil. They also react to other plants, to animals, and Gulf Coast; and the October 2005 Pakistan earthquake. insects that chew on them, and to microorganisms that Other, less catastrophic disasters include a multiplicity of invade them. This lecture focuses on how plants change landslides, flooding, wildfires, tornadoes, and epidemics. their shapes, their growth patterns, and their chemical For many of these events, vast quantities of satellite data arsenals in response to what they encounter in the envi- are opening new horizons to better understanding. ronment, describing the molecules inside plant cells that Using space-time patterns and information about the detect and respond to the outside world. dynamics of these high-dimensional nonlinear earth sys- tems, it is often possible to construct numerical simula- Wednesday, September 13: The Jumping Genome: tions that can be used to make predictions about the Changing Ideas about Heredity and Evolution evolution of the system and the possible occurrence of The first half of the 20th century witnessed the birth of extreme events. genetics as the science of genes, identified as units of heredity by the monk Gregor Mendel late in the 19th cen- The lectures are made possible through support from tury. Genetics became the study of the regular and meas- community supporters, and they are underwritten by Los ured inheritance of genes from parents to offspring. Alamos National Bank. For information on how you can Watson and Crick’s 1953 model of DNA structure provid- help support the Public Lecture Series, please contact ed a solid molecular scaffold for the geneticists’ ideas. Ginger Richardson at 505-946-2749, or [email protected]. But even at midcentury, a revolution was brewing when Barbara McClintock announced that genes didn’t always There is no admission charge, but seating is limited. The stay in place, but could sometimes jump from chromo- talks are generally held at 7 p.m. at the James A. Little some to chromosome. This lecture explores how molecu- Theater on the campus of the New Mexico School of the lar biology, and especially the sequencing of the DNA of Deaf, 1060 Cerrillos Road, Santa Fe. many animals and plants, profoundly changed our under- standing of both heredity and evolution. For more current information about a particular talk, visit our website at http://www.santafe.edu/sfi/events/publi- Thursday, September 14: Genetically Modified Foods: clectures.html or call 505-984-8800. Monsters or Miracles? We’re bombarded with conflicting information about Please contact the Santa Fe Institute to arrange for sign genetically modified (GM) foods. There are many claims: language interpretation if necessary. t Rice modified to produce vitamin A will save millions of

Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 37 Research Professors Swedish Institute of Computer rithms; statistical mechanics-Monte Science. Her research focuses on Carlo simulation, simulated anneal- Tanmoy Bhattacharya, in a using the tools and techniques pro- ing, diffusion; and geography-car- joint appointment with Los Alamos vided by non-equilibrium statistical tography, visualization of social phe- National Laboratory, works on evolu- mechanics to understand problems nomena on maps. His 2005 doctor- tion of viruses and host-virus interac- in other fields such as biology, com- ate in physics is from the University tions, phylogenetic methods and puter science and finance. of Michigan. their applications, rational design of vaccines and observed quantum Fabrizio Lillo, economics and Chen Hou’s 2005 Ph.D. in physics systems. biology, Universita` degli Studi di is from the University of Missouri at Palermo. His research focuses on Columbia. He works with Geoff West Paleobiologist Doug Erwin, is in modeling classical or quantum on universal scaling laws. a joint appointment with the processes with power-law distribu- National Museum of Natural History, tion and/or long memory properties; From Cornell with a degree in neuro- Smithsonian Institution. His research microstructure of limit order book- biology and behavior, Joshua interests are evolutionary innovation, driven financial markets; and the role Landau works in the areas of null causes of end-Permian mass extinc- of genomic information in determin- model analyses, mathematical ecolo- tion and biotic recovery following ing gene regulation. gy, random graph theory, community mass extinction, and evolution of ecology and entomology. development. John Pepper, ecology and evolu- tionary biology at the University of Thimo Rohlf received his Ph.D. in Jon Wilkins comes to SFI from Arizona. He works on dynamics of theoretical physics in 2004 from the the Society of Fellows at Harvard multilevel selection, or systems in University of Kiel. Most recently he University. His prior work focused on which natural selection acts simulta- was a postdoctoral fellow with the J. coalescent theory and genomic neously at more than one level in a Jost group at the Max-Planck imprinting; his current research biological hierarchy. Institute for Mathematics in the expands into human demographic Sciences in Leipzig, Germany. At SFI, history, altruism, cultural evolution, Postdoctoral Fellows Rohlf works on regulatory networks and statistical inference. and evolution of multicellularity. Lauren Buckley received her Ph.D. in biological sciences in 2005 External Professors From Cornell with a background in from Stanford University. Her materials physics, Jessika Nihat Ay, mathematics and research examines how energy use Trancik researches sustainable physics, University of Erlangen- and availability govern the density, energy generation and, in particular, Nuremberg. His research interests distributions, and diversity of reptiles ways to reduce the costs of renew- are in information-theoretic and amphibians across spatial scales. approaches to neural networks; able energy systems, including nanoscience research on low-cost mathematical aspects of robustness Stanca Ciupe is an SFI postdoc- photovoltaics and driving innovation in biological systems; mathematical toral researcher working with Alan in the photovoltaics industry. learning theory; and classical and Perelson on the Human Frontiers in quantum information theory. Science project. Her research focuses International Fellows on developing mathematical models Bailin Hao, T-Life Research Center for the study of immune system Miguel Fuentes, from Centro at Fundan University and the reactions against viral diseases, Atomico Bariloche, Argentina, was in Institute of Theoretical Physics, namely HIV infection and hepatitis B residence June 2005 to work with Beijing. His research interests infection. David Krakauer on robust signal include theoretical physics, computa- transduction through kinetic spatial tional physics, nonlinear science, and Michael Gastner’s interests patterning. theoretical life science. include complex networks including transportation networks, Internet, Francisco Gutierrez, Supriya Krishnamurthy, utility networks, social networks, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Distributed Systems Laboratory, network models, network algo- visited SFI in July 2005. His main

38 Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 interests are political School) worked with economy of war, democ- Geoff West’s group on a ratization, and political plant-scaling project. parties. Matt Matson- Jorge Velasco- Tibbetts (Monte del Hernandez was at SFI Sol Charter School) used July 2005. From the the article “Experimental Instituto Mexicano del demonstration of chaos Petroleo, he researches in a microbial food web” the mathematics of func- (Nature, 2005) as the tion and structure of bac- basis for a modeling terial consortia and the project. mathematics of the popu- lation dynamics of com- Veronica Cordova PHOTO: ROBERT BUELTEMAN ©2004 BUELTEMAN PHOTO: ROBERT puter viruses in networks. (Santa Fe Secondary Colombia, worked with Sam Bowles School) collaborated with Chris Undergraduate Fellows, on an agent-based model of a mone- Kempe on a model dealing with one Summer 2005 tary pre-capitalist economy. aspect of plant physiology called trans-evaporation. Bradley Chase, computer sci- Carleton College’s Alex Petroff, ence and physics at Rice University, a physics and math major, worked Sonja Romero (Santa Fe High worked with Alfred Hubler examin- with Geoff West and Jim Brown on School), mentored by Michael Miller, ing the relationship between infor- plant geometry. Theoretical work worked on a project that modeled mation and energy in the context of was done at SFI with an experimen- gambling. simple physical systems. tal component at the University of New Mexico. Science Board Virgil Griffith worked with Doyne Farmer examining the rela- Persi Diaconis is Mary V. Devorah West, from Brown tionship between information and Sunseri Professor of Statistics and University (where she majors in energy in the context of simple phys- Mathematics at Stanford University. social science), collaborated with ical systems. Griffith is a cognitive Elisabeth Wood examining radical sciences major at Indiana University. Don Glaser is professor of racial ideals and sexual violence in physics and neurobiology at the Rwanda, Bosnia, and Nazi Germany. University of California–Berkeley. He Chris Kempes from Colorado Secondary School Fellows, works on constructing computational College joined Geoff West’s working Summer 2005 models of the human visual system group on universal scaling laws which explain its performance in exploring in particular tree vascular Stoyana Alexandrova (Los terms of its physiology and anatomy. networks. Alamos High School) worked with Virgil Griffith on principles of self- Bill Greenough is Swanlund and Michael Miller’s work focused reproduction in a stochastic envi- Center for Advanced Study Professor on strategy-based wealth distribu- ronment. in the University of Illinois depart- tions, exploring with Doyne Farmer a ments of psychology, psychiatry, and simple game-theoretical betting Dylan Allegretti’s (Santa Fe cell and structural biology; and a full- model where players’ bets influence Preparatory School) project featured time faculty member in the Beckman the outcome of a probabilistic game. a bottom-up simulation of an eco- Institute NeuroTech Group. Miller majors in physics at Stanford. nomic system. He was mentored by REU Felipe Motta. Art Jaffe is Landon T. Clay International Undergraduate Fellow Professor of mathematics and theo- Felipe Andres Motta, from the Mentored by Alex Petroff, Alexei retical science at Harvard University. University of the Andes in Bogota, Pesic (Santa Fe Preparatory Jaffe’s major scientific work has

Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 39 been in the realm of understanding agement science and engineering Former Science Board member quantum field theory and the mathe- departments at Stanford University. Theodore T. Puck—a genetics matics that it inspires. researcher who devised techniques David Robinson is a consultant for growing human cells in the labo- Paleontologist David Raup is to Carnegie Corporation of New ratory and who helped determine the Professor Emeritus at The University York. He has been a trustee of the number of chromosomes in a gene— of Chicago. He is best known for his City University of New York and has died in November. With a career theory that mass extinctions occur served on committees of the spanning more than 60 years, he was every 26 million years. This theory National Research Council, the credited with many advances that was originally proposed in 1984 with Council on Foreign Relations, the have become basic elements of University of Chicago colleague Dr. American Association for the research in oncology and the human J. John Sepkoski. Advancement of Science, and the genome and have helped unravel President’s Science Advisory some of the mysteries of genetic dis- Trustees Committee. eases. Puck, who in 1961 founded the Eleanor Roosevelt Institute of Cancer Stewart Greenfield, Chairman Research (now part of the University of Alternative Investment Group, Awards of Denver), performed some of the divides his time between environ- Princeton University ecologist and first studies of radiation doses and mental activities and hedge fund SFI Science Board member Simon the effects of environmental contami- investing. His Environmental Venture Levin is a 2005 Kyoto Prize nants on DNA. He was a fellow of Fund, in conjunction with the Nature Laureate. The international awards Los Alamos National Laboratory, an Conservancy, has initiated projects are presented by the Inamori editorial board member of the that have preserved over 18 million Foundation to individuals and Encyclopedia Britannica, and a mem- acres in Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, groups worldwide who have con- ber of the National Academy of Chile, Panama, and elsewhere. tributed significantly to mankind’s Science and the American Academy betterment. Levin’s award cited his of Arts and Sciences. John Holland is professor of work “for the establishment of the computer science and engineering field of spatial ecology and the Sergei Anatolyevich and professor of psychology at the proposition of the biosphere as a Starostin died suddenly of a heart University of Michigan. In his 40-year complex adaptive system.” attack on September 30, 2005, short- career he has formulated genetic Considered among the world’s lead- ly after delivering a lecture in algorithms, classifier systems, and ing awards for lifetime achievement, Moscow. A historical linguist and the Echo model as tools for studying the Kyoto Prize recognizes lifelong scholar, Starostin was best known the dynamics of complex adaptive contributions in the categories of for his work with proto-languages, systems. Advanced Technology, Basic and for his formulation of the Dene- Sciences, and Arts and Philosophy. Caucasian hypothesis. He was instru- Diana MacArthur is co-founder, mental in the reconstruction of chair, and chief executive officer at Passings Proto-Kiranti, Proto-Tibeto-Burman, Dynamac Corporation, a science, Proto-Yenisseian, Proto-North- engineering, and technology compa- Armand Bartos, former SFI Caucasian, and Proto-Altaic lan- ny specializing in space, life, and trustee and active member of the guages. He devoted much of his later earth sciences; natural resources Institute community, died late in life to developing the theory, origi- management and ecological restora- 2005. Bartos, a consulting partner in nated by Roy Miller, that Japanese is tion; environmental management the New York firm of Bartos & an Altaic language. At the time of his and compliance; and defense servic- Rhodes Architects, received his bach- death, he was a professor at the es and homeland security. elor’s degree in architecture from the Russian State University for the University of Pennsylvania in 1934 Humanities, a visiting professor at Robert Maxfield is president of and his master’s degree in architec- the Santa Fe Institute, and a frequent the Maxfield Foundation, which he ture from MIT in 1935. He was a part- guest lecturer at Leiden University in founded in 1986 to support scientific ner with Kiesler and Bartos in New the Netherlands, where he was research and education. He was a York City from 1957–62, and then awarded the degree of doctor hon- co-founder in 1969 of ROLM became principal partner at Armand oris causa in June 2005. t Corporation. Since 1988 he has been Bartos and Associates, NYC, in 1962. a consulting professor in the man-

40 Santa Fe Institute Bulletin WINTER 2006 Identifying the New By Chris Wood, Vice President One of the great challenges this strong record into the future, we will at the Santa Fe Institute is to effec- need to understand innovation at even tively identify truly new ideas and deeper levels and to develop continuing invest in people who are likely to means to support research that is truly generate them. The invention of the high risk, with great potential for high PHOTO: ROBERT MILLER PHOTO: ROBERT transistor, the understanding of opti- impact. Despite the National Science cal physics that led to lasers, those kinds Board Workshop on Transformative of breakthroughs have impact far beyond Research mentioned above, the NSF and what could have been envisioned by their other federal sponsors remain conserva- inventors. And yet, very little is known tive in their risk-taking and focused on about where such breakthroughs come near-term, incremental progress. from. They clearly build on what’s been SFI has rightly emphasized the impor- there before, but are not simple extrapola- tance of pursuing pure research, inde- tions. A key characteristic is connection: pendent of potential applications or spe- out of pre-existing connections arise new cific sponsor-directed deliverables. Yet ones that no one anticipated. some of the world’s most important sci- Finding out more about such ideas and entific breakthroughs have come from the thus increasing the likelihood of coming interaction between the independent and up with them is where some of my scien- the applied. Consider Alan Turing, for tific interests and administrative responsi- example. He is responsible for break- bilities for the Institute come together. We through work in pure mathematics, in the should not be surprised that innovation theory of computation, and in cognitive has been a recurrent theme in SFI activi- science, all of which were influenced by ties, and we’re not the only ones thinking his work at Bletchley Park during World about this important issue. The National War II, when he and colleagues devel- Science Foundation’s (NSF) National oped techniques to break the German Science Board recently held a task force Enigma codes (for a wonderful biography, meeting of about 40 people at SFI focused see Alan Hodges’ book Alan Turing: The on the problem of “identifying and foster- Enigma, Simon and Schuster, 1983). ing transformative research,” that is, Citing Turing (or other equivalent research that is likely to produce truly rev- examples) is not intended to foreshadow a olutionary changes in a particular field. “tilt toward the applied” for the Institute: One of the major talks at the workshop far from it! Rather, it is intended to was presented by historian Rogers emphasize that innovation is likely to arise Hollingsworth of the University of out of broad connections and interactions Wisconsin, who has spent much of his well outside the “usual suspects” in a career studying characteristics of institu- given area. SFI’s Business Network pro- tions that foster innovation (http://histo- vides a fertile source of interactions with ry.wisc.edu/hollingsworth/). “real-world” problems and constraints, Hollingsworth summarized a large body of and SFI resident and external faculty con- research by saying that many of the key tinue to generate exciting new opportuni- institutional characteristics needed for ties for interactions beyond the “usual sus- effective innovation are present at SFI, a pects” (e.g., the Krakauer-Gaddis working wonderful homage to the Institute’s group on History and Complexity). A bet- founders and to its scientists and leader- ter scientific understanding of innovation ship since. at all levels and in all its manifestations But in order to maintain and extend will serve the Institute well.
Cover photo: On the sea floor at Mariana Arc in the Pacific Ocean, yellow and orange microbial mats form a “bioreactor” mound with a thin crust and small chimneys on top.

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