Complexity science has spread from its origins in the physical sciences into biological and social sciences (1). Increasingly, the social sciences frame policy problems from the financial system to the food system as complex adaptive systems (CAS) and urge policy-makers to design legal solutions with CAS properties in mind. What is often poorly recognized in these initiatives is that legal systems are also complex adaptive systems (2). Just as it seems unwise to pursue regulatory measures while ignoring known CAS properties of the systems targeted for regulation, so too might failure to appreciate CAS qualities of legal systems yield policies founded upon unrealistic assumptions. Despite a long empirical studies tradition in law, there has been little use of complexity science. With few robust empirical studies of legal systems as CAS, researchers are left to gesture at seemingly evident assertions, with limited scientific support. We outline a research agenda to help fill this knowledge gap and advance practical applications.

 

Harnessing legal complexity
J. B. Ruhl, Daniel Martin Katz, Michael J. Bommarito II

Science  31 Mar 2017:
Vol. 355, Issue 6332, pp. 1377-1378
DOI: 10.1126/science.aag3013

Source: science.sciencemag.org

For decades, archaeologists thought democratic republics such as classical Athens and medieval Venice were a purely European phenomenon. Conventional wisdom held that in premodern, non-Western societies, despots simply extracted labor and wealth from their subjects. But archaeologists have identified several societies in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica that upend that model. They argue that societies such as Tlaxcallan in the central Mexican highlands and Tres Zapotes along the Mexican gulf coast were organized collectively, meaning that rulers shared power and commoners had a say in the government that presided over their lives. These societies were not necessarily full democracies in which citizens cast votes, but they were radically different from the autocratic, inherited rule found—or assumed—in most ancient societies. Archaeologists now say that these collective societies left telltale traces in their material culture and urban planning, such as repetitive architecture, an emphasis on public space over palaces, reliance on local production over exotic trade goods, and a narrowing of wealth gaps between elites and commoners.

 

Unearthing democracy’s roots
Lizzie Wade

Science  17 Mar 2017:
Vol. 355, Issue 6330, pp. 1114-1118
DOI: 10.1126/science.355.6330.1114

Source: science.sciencemag.org

There are few sights more spectacular than the swarming of a school of fish or a flock of birds that suddenly gives way to a directional motion. Arguably, our admiration is rooted in the surprise that individual organisms, capable of self-propulsion on their own, organize to move en masse in a coherent fashion. Coherent motion is common in a large class of biological and synthetic materials that are often referred to as active matter. Such materials consist of particles immersed in a fluid that can extract energy from their surroundings (or internal fuel) and convert it into directed motion. Living organisms, biological tissues, rods on a vibrated plate, and self-phoretic colloids are just a few examples (1). Similar to schools of fish and flocks of birds, active matter often exhibits random swarming motion (2–5) that until now was impossible to control or use. On page 1284 of this issue, Wu et al. (6) demonstrate that an active fluid can be manipulated to flow in a particular direction without any external stimuli by confining it in microchannels.

 

From chaos to order in active fluids
Alexander Morozov

Science  24 Mar 2017:
Vol. 355, Issue 6331, pp. 1262-1263
DOI: 10.1126/science.aam8998

Source: science.sciencemag.org

What is noise? Common sense tells us it is a disturbance, an invasion of our perceptual space, a nuisance. But this is only part of a more complex story that the sciences and modern technologies might help us unravel. ‘Noise’ has a contextual meaning, but it also points at something ‘in nature’ (or in society)—and something that might also have a function and/or beneficial effects. In this article I show that what is categorized as ‘noise’ is there not necessarily to be removed or to be dispensed with, but to be used and taken advantage of.

 

There Is “Noise,” and Noise

Eleonora Montuschi

Perspectives on Science

March-April 2017, Vol. 25, No. 2, Pages: 204-225
Posted Online March 29, 2017.
(doi:10.1162/POSC_a_00241)

Source: www.mitpressjournals.org

A.I. VERSUS M.D.
What happens when diagnosis is automated?
By Siddhartha Mukherjee

Source: www.newyorker.com