Cosma
Popular Science Pieces and Profiles
I try to talk to you, to make things clear
These are the published, commercial articles I've written, trying to explain
scientific ideas to non-scientists. Mostly they're either reports on
scientific meetings, or profiles of particular people. Somehow it's mostly
ended up being economics, i.e., where I have no qualifications whatsoever. I
hope the results are of some use to the people who read them, and not too
painful for those I write about. I do this partly because it's fun, but mostly
because it pays very well for the amount of actual effort involved. (Editors:
I am usually available and always willing to listen to proposals.)
- Pieces for the Santa Fe Institute
Bulletin:
- Many Are Claimed, Few
Are Validated: Report on the 1998 Spring Symposium [Run with a different
title, about 1300 fewer words, and most of the jokes excised. I'd never
appreciated authors' complaints about copy-editors before.]
- The Primordial
Goulash [Again run with a different title, much shorter (well,
it is too long), and much more diplomatic. (Even in this version I
don't mention Marx.) I'd not have touched this one at all, were it not that I
owed the editor a big favor (and, of course, for the money).]
- Homo reciprocans: Political Economy and
Cultural Evolution [Mostly about the more recent work of
Sam Bowles and his
henchpersons.]
- Modeling Markets
[Mostly about J. Doyne Farmer and
his henchpersons. The published version is much more diplomatic about the
wisdom of the markets than I really feel.]
- Growth,
Form, Function, Crashes [Report on the first SFI conference on network
dynamics. Alternate
link.]
- The Logic of Diversity:
The Complexity of a Controversial Concept [About the work of Scott Page and the Diversity Project at the
University of Michigan]
- Pieces for Quantitative Finance:
- The World is Our Laboratory: A
Profile of Myron S. Scholes [Doing this was a bit of an odd experience.]
- Pieces for American Scientist
- "The Bootstrap"
[After-notes]