In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Paul Smaldino about agent-based models of social dynamics. They discuss why modeling in social sciences are important, quantitative and qualitative data, models and how we define them, and decomposition with complexity science. They also discuss modeling with multivariate questions, importance of theory, modeling with COVID19, modeling in politics, and many more topics.

Paul Smaldino is an Associate Professor of Cognitive & Information Sciences and faculty in the Quantitative and Systems Biology graduate program at UC Merced, where he is also affiliated with the Center for Analytic Political Engagement and the Center for Interdisciplinary Neuroscience. He is also an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. His primary interests are how behaviors emerge and evolve in response to social, cultural, and ecological pressures, as well as how those pressures can themselves evolve. He also has broad interests related to cultural evolution, cooperation, and complex systems. He is the author of the book, Modeling Social Behavior: Mathematical and Agent-Based Models of Social Dynamics and Cultural Evolution.

Website: https://smaldino.com/wp/

Twitter: @psmaldino

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