Synopsis
Applies ideas and methods from the complexity perspective to key concerns in the social sciences, exploring co-evolutionary processes.
From the Author
Keynes wrote that the world is ruled by ideas that often lag
behind today's thinking. The journals of the social sciences today are
dominated by linear cross sectional methods, drawn from early physical
science, that are assumed to confer scientific status on knowledge.
Prediction is viewed as the goal of research and analysis is based on a
standard statistical repertoire. Social science research often puzzles
business people and policy makers who deal with cause and effects that are
not linear but operate through complex feedbacks, with consequences that
are unpredictable, where evidence eludes the normal curve. Meanwhile, more
recent approaches in the natural sciences address complex feedback effects,
evolutionary processes and skewed distributions. The dynamic, non-linear
perspectives of complexity thought have myriad social and economic
applications. These have been described until now in writings aimed either
at a highly technical or at popular audiences. This book applies ideas from
complexity thought to research-based evidence in an accessible way.
Specialists in economics, evolutionary theory, cities, industrial
manufacturing, technology change and archaeology have contributed chapters.
It is aimed at readers who are open to new ideas in their own fields and to
those who want to keep up with new approaches in related areas. Topics
include the evolution of localities and cities, the decline of mature
regions and the rise of new knowledge-based industry. A unifying theme
concerns the sustainability and resilience of systems shaped by people
interacting. Evolutionary economics is shown to be concerned with
co-evolutionary issues closely related to complexity themes. Practical
intervention is examined in the light of these perspectives.
See all Product Description
