From the Homo Economicus to the Homo Socialis

The economic agent is different from her natural counterpart, the atom, since she behaves the way she wants and not only in the way she must. This is not an irrelevant detail because it requires the social scientist not to draw analytical tools from hard sciences as they are, but it compels to suitably adapt techniques to social phenomena, or finding newer and sounder ones. Gintis and Helbing start on a journal in that direction.