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In a former life I was an economics grad student, spent a few weeks at the Santa Fe Institute, and returned to school full of zeal for simulation and complexity
by joelgrus 13y ago
In a former life I was an economics grad student, spent a few weeks at the Santa Fe Institute, and returned to school full of zeal for simulation and complexity.
At which point it was subtly suggested to me by senior faculty members that -- if I wanted to graduate and become a "real" economist -- I should really focus on proving things, not on simulating things.
(Shortly thereafter I left the program, although not particularly because of this episode.)
- msellout 13y agoThe Santa Fe Institute is awesome. I'm especially a fan of Mark Buchanan (http://physicsoffinance.blogspot.com/ http://physicsoffinance.blogspot.com/). I also found that simulations weren't exciting to the economists in my program. My advisor suggested I move to Paris. He followed his own advice shortly after.
- dredmorbius 13y agoI've kept running into people doing work at SFI (Geoffrey West recently). Though I know little about the place itself. From what comes out of it, though, I'm awfully impressed. Having been indoctrinated in economics myself (it got better), your experience doesn't much surprise me. The discipline strikes me as largely bankrupt.