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Columbia University in the City of New York | New York, N. Ce OUR pecs

CENTER FOR THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 420 West 118th Street
DIRECTOR

March 15, 1980

Dr. Josh Lederberg, President
Rockefeller University

1230 Yark Avenue

New York, New York 10021

Dear Josh:

I write to inquire whether you would be interested in joining a new
workshop that we are developing at the Center. The workshop will focus on
problems of "decision-making under conditions of uncertainty." We hope to
have roughly 25 regular participants who are drawn fran various departments
and schools throughout the University, as well as fran other universities
in the New Yark Metropolitan area.

I believe that the various problems that fall under the general rubric
of decision-making under conditions of uncertainty are central to the
social sciences today. Much work is being done on these problems already,
but much mare needs to be done. The study of these problems also links
potentially the various natural ad social science communities. A central
question that will guide much of our work will be: How do individuals,
organizations, and institutions make significant social and economic
decisions when they possess, at best, only partial information to formulate
decisions and policy?

Plainly, decision-making on the basis of partial information takes
place in a wide variety of domains including, among many others: medical
research diagnostic practices; legal regulations and court decisions;
goverrment social program formulations and evaluations; public health
hazard decisions; scientific resource allocation; hiring and pranotion
decisions in hierarchically arranged organizations; consumer behavior
decisions and indeed, in the formulation of almost all public policy.

I hope that the workshop will not only result in interesting exchanges
of ideas between people in different disciplines, but may also lead toa
set of "satellite" research projects that further develop the interests of
members of the workshop.

The workshop will be sanewhat unusual in that it will draw upon very
different theoretical aw@ientations ad technical skills. Consequently,
part of the challenge of this workshop will be to have researchers talk
about the most advanced work they are doing in problems of decision-making
under uncertainty, and to do so in language that is understandable to
individuals in other disciplines who may not be familiar with either the
particular theoretical franevork or mathematics used in specifying formal.
models.
Here are sane additional specifics about the structure of the
workshop. First, we hope to limit its size to no more than 25 or 30 people
who will attend the sessions on a regular basis. Second, we will meet at
the Center once every other week on Tuesdays at 4 p.m., with the normal
session running roughly two hours. Third, one page abstracts of the talks
will be circulated at least a week in advance of the session. These
abstracts will include both a summary of the topics to be covered and one
or two references to more technical papers on the subject that members of
the workshop may want to examine before the session itself. Occasionally,
speakers will discuss drafts of papers that have been circulated to the
group in advance of the meeting. Fourth, the group will include quests
fran other neighboring universities, such as the Rockefeller University,
who wish to be active participants in the workshop.

If you decide to participate in the workshop, would you please either YO
write or call me (280-3093) to let me know the topic that you would like to
speak to the group about and the best month of the next academic year for you
to present same of your materials.

Let me reiterate in closing what the central goals of the workshop
are: (1) to bring together people in several disciplines who have common
intellectual concerns who are interested in finding out what others are
wor king on and in discussing each others' work. This is not intended to
produce formal collaborations between members of the workshop, although if
that should occur as a by-product of the seminar, so much the better; (2)
to produce improved understanding of the problematics surrounding issues
of decision-making under conditions of uncertainty and/or in the absence of
full information; (3) to help generate support for research projects that
either are currently underway or are being contemplated and possibly for
post-doctoral traineeships; and (4) to help develop, possibly, a collection
of essays on general themes related to decision-making that will be
published as products of the workshop.

If I have spoken to you informally about this workshop, then please
take this as a formal invitation to join us. If I have not yet had an
opportunity to speak to you about the workshop, I hope that you also will
take this as an invitation to join us and to call me for further details
about either the focus of the seminar or its operation. I have hopes that
this workshop will be an informative and interesting one and that it will
provide for needed exchanges of ideas between people who have not had
sufficient opportunity to engage each other.

I look forward to hearing fran you shortly, since I hope to have next
year's schedule of talks set by the middle of April.
Sincerely,

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