---
title: Complexity Science
description: Complexity science studies systems whose behaviour emerges from many interacting parts. You will learn agent-based models, emergence, self-organisation and the tools used across biology, economics and social science.
category: social-sciences
subcategory: cognitive-science
difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced
url: /subject/complexity-science
---

# Complexity Science

Complexity science studies systems whose behaviour emerges from many interacting parts. You will learn agent-based models, emergence, self-organisation and the tools used across biology, economics and social science.

## Available Resources

3 Books • 1 Courses

## Books

### 1. An Introduction to Agent-Based Modeling: Modeling Natural, Social, and Engineered Complex Systems with NetLogo

**Author:** Uri Wilensky, William Rand

Textbook on building, extending, verifying and analysing agent-based models in NetLogo, written by NetLogo's creator. Covers emergence, model design, data collection and validation, using examples from biology, economics and social science.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0262731894?tag=edmonddante07-20

**Tags:** agent-based-modeling, netlogo, complex-systems, simulation, emergence

### 2. Introduction to the Modeling and Analysis of Complex Systems

**Author:** Hiroki Sayama

Free open textbook (CC BY-NC-SA) whose 19 chapters cover discrete- and continuous-time models, bifurcations, chaos, cellular automata, continuous field models, static and dynamic networks, and agent-based models, each modeling chapter paired with Python code and mathematical analysis. Best free technical textbook for the whole field; takes a learner from concepts to building and analysing models in code, covering agent-based models, emergence and networks.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/233

**Tags:** complex-systems, dynamical-systems, agent-based-modeling, network-science, chaos-theory, python

### 3. Complexity: A Guided Tour

**Author:** Melanie Mitchell

Santa Fe Institute researcher's non-technical account of complex systems: cellular automata, genetic algorithms, networks, chaos and information theory. Readers come away understanding how organised behaviour emerges from simple interacting parts across biology and computing.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0199798109?tag=edmonddante07-20

**Tags:** complex-systems, emergence, cellular-automata, genetic-algorithms, network-science, chaos-theory

## Courses

### 1. Introduction to Complexity

**Author:** Melanie Mitchell

Self-paced 10-unit course from the Santa Fe Institute covering dynamics and chaos, fractals, information, genetic algorithms, cellular automata, biological self-organization, cooperation models, networks and scaling. Uses NetLogo simulations and assumes no math or science background. Free, always open, graded exams, and the field's full toolkit in one pass.

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.complexityexplorer.org/courses/185-introduction-to-complexity

**Tags:** complex-systems, chaos-theory, fractals, cellular-automata, network-science, self-organization

---

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