Diversity and Complexity

By Scott Page

Princeton University Press, 2010.

5.0 / 1

19 mins read

17 Key insights

A brief summary of Diversity and Complexity

A primer exploring the role of diversity in creating and supporting complex systems, including the factors that determine its effect on innovation and progress, and how it sustains and benefits robust growth.

Key insights in Diversity and Complexity

What do you get from this book? Discover a new framework to understand diversity and how it relates to complexity

Diversity can be understood as variation within a type, between types, or between different configurations

A complex system is characterized as existing somewhere between order and randomness

To measure diversity, we can look at a whole population or the variations of individual types within that population

Variation in evolutionary and creative systems is created through processes like mutation and recombination

Differences between types emerge in response to external conditions and changes in their environment

Diversity across systems is created as they follow certain paths, though evolutionary and creative systems act differently

Diversity isn’t infinite—it is constrained by elements like possible size, demand, interdependence, and functionality

When diversity combines with a set of interconnected rules, a complex system is created

Variation often contributes to the robustness and resilience of a complex system

Interactions between members of a group can cause negative or positive feedback loops, which are impacted by variations

Potential shifts in a complex system are signaled by variation and are followed by innovation through diversity

Diversity creates inevitable benefits for complex systems through averaging and the diminishing returns of uniformity

When the elements of a system interact, diversity has an even more meaningful impact on the system’s efficacy

Summary of the key insights

Selected critiques in brief

Final word

Who should read Diversity and Complexity

Scholars and budding academics • biology and ecology students • anyone who needs to research ideas for an undergraduate degree • people interested in why diversity is important to the world

About the author of Diversity and Complexity

Scott Page is a political scientist and Professor of Complexity, Social Science, and Management at the University of Michigan. Page has also been the director of the Center for the Study of Complex Systems and has written The Model Thinker and The Diversity Bonus.

Scott Page

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