See-through Science

See-through Science is the title of the report that deals with public engagement in science. It was produced by a Think Tank called DEMOS and the report is not about public understanding of science, or even public engagement with the outcomes of scientific research, but with what is termed upstream engagement. This means involving the public in decisions about the public funding of research, so the involvement is with research policy, research strategy, and decisions to fund specific topics. It is also a process of democratising these activities and making the scientific community accountable. Upstream engagement deals with matters of what, why and how, and seeks to bring into the open exactly that which the scientific community on the whole keeps hidden – more about this later.

Although the focus of the report is on science, the same thinking can also be applied to technology development and engineering, so one can also talk about See-through Technology and See-through Engineering. As with science, there are matters that the technology and engineering communities would prefer the public not to know about.

The report is excellent and represents a major contribution to the development of a new approach to the governance of science, engineering and technology development activities, and this advanced thinking is a key component of what is now called Responsible Research and Innovation. However, I have yet to find an example where upstream public engagement has been adopted. I also strongly suspect that the present UK Government is not seriously interested in this type of public engagement, given its track record in pushing ahead with nuclear power and fracking, and the clear intention also to do the same with GM, all of which are just the thin edge of the wedge, so to speak, as there are many more controversial matters in the pipe-line that have yet to achieve public attention, such as, the underground burning of coal for electricity generation, which, if left to the those often involved (experts and so-called independent societies and institutions), will lead to the outcome that the vested interests want – go ahead because the risks can be managed.

In the See-through Science report you will learn about what is called the deficit mind-set, which is something I encounter very regularly. The deficit model, which sits inside the heads of many in the science, engineering and technology communities, explains public concerns and rejection of, whatever it is that these people want to impose on society, as a lack of public understanding. If only the poor ignorant public understood x, y or z, and how marvellous they are, then they would embrace these things wholeheartedly.  I have seen this for myself many times and it usually comes with a good dose of arrogance and hubris, coupled with contempt for public opinion.

The report also discusses the disappearance of the distinction between industry science and public sector science. As a result of this, it is no more possible to assume that those in the public sector are not under the influence of large corporations and their particular agendas. Again this is something that I have observed first-hand, and it is highly disturbing to see academics speaking on behalf of their big corporate sponsors, as though they were still independent people with, as they say, no particular axe to grind. There is you see, in modern science, a very low sensitivity to everyday ethical issues such as declaring conflicts of interest. Money speaks louder than conscience.

The report mentions that there has been a move in some cases away from deficit model thinking, and the notion of public education in science (which is something that the BBC primarily addresses in its programmes such as Horizon and Science Club), to engagement to discuss the use of new science, new technology. But the report notes that this is not always meaningful, being more an exercise in ticking the box of public consultation. It also suffers from the flaw that once some new science or technology has been developed, a pressure builds to apply it. Also noted in the report is the importance of setting the right brief for public engagement, for it is all too easy for governments to set this in a way that leads to the closure of the issue, and also the outcome that those who want to deploy the results of the research are looking for – the green light to go ahead.

I am sorry to say that what is written above is very true, and that governments and those that represent the interests of science and engineering, do actually manipulate these consultations and engagements, to deliver the result that they all want. And the result they are looking for is invariably to plough ahead.

And what you will find in the See-through Science report are all the reasons why you should not trust scientists, engineers. Many of these people hide behind a deception of independence, and suffer from the delusion that they are unbiased and are only concerned with rational evidence based thinking. They do not want you to see what is really driving forward science, engineering and technology – often they cannot see these things themselves foe they are the invisible chains that bind them to the rock of the past.

And what it is that they do not want the public to see, are values, beliefs, assumptions, visions, self-interests, vested interests, and the like, which drive scientific, engineering and technology development in what are now very familiar directions, which inevitably involves someone making a lot of money at the price of most things that matter most. But risks, they say, can be managed. Yet the evident is growing that the risks cannot be managed, as nuclear energy clearly demonstrates. But these fools persist in thinking that we can still use nuclear as an energy source. They have indeed lost contact with reality.

So as the report says, the task of upstream public engagement is to make visible the invisible, to expose to public scrutiny the assumptions, values and visions that drive science, and to also expose something else, that often the people advocating a particular science or new technology, do not know what they do not know. That also is something I see very regularly.

The report also highlights how most often discussions about new science and new technology are framed by those who set the terms of reference, around matters of risk, which invariably leads to the usual conclusion that the risks can be managed, even though evidence (that sacred word) for this is, at best, flimsy. What however concerns the public, are consequences, which are rarely discussed. And consequences come in two forms: those that can be anticipated and those that cannot. Rachel Carson, in her thought leading book, Silent Spring, explained much about these matters, and that was back in early 1960. Here we are in 2014 and the lunatic asylum that is the world of modern science, engineering and technology have yet to catch-up with Rachel’ thinking about unforeseen consequences. As I have said many times, these people have become like Prometheus.

And this brings me back to my forthcoming novel, Moments in Time. The central character is one of those the risks can be managed types, and only after he has destroyed everything of value in his world, does he realise that the risks cannot be managed, and what he needs to do to stop being like Prometheus.

On FIRE!

In October 2013 I attended a FIRE workshop in Ghent, Belgium. FIRE is an acronym that stands for Future Internet Research and Experimentation which is one of the research areas in the European Commission’s Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) research programme, which is part of what is called Horizon 2020, a seven year framework of research programmes that began operation in 2014. One can also find FIRE activities elsewhere in the world, for example in the United States.

I participated in this workshop because I am interested in experimentation with the internet in connection with the work I am undertaking on the development of an author-centric business model, which is designed to make life difficult for established interests such as publishers, who are already making life difficult for themselves through their outdated perspectives about the future of book publishing. They are a good example of how an established industry is being creatively destroyed by people and companies from outside the sector – this is what the internet helps to enable, and this creative destruction can happen at a ferocious pace, and it is also what free market economics is about (the internal process of creative destruction by which capitalism continually destroys itself by reinventing itself – otherwise called innovation by those not familiar with the jargon of macro economics).

I came to the workshop knowing that some of the FIRE projects have funds available for those external to the projects, to undertake experimentation using the FIRE facilities. I also knew that that the demand for these funds far exceeds their supply. What I did not know was that most of these funds are being taken by academia and research institutes and that industry demand for them is very low. I also learned that there is now an open access policy, whereby application can be made to use the FIRE facilities on a self-funded basis. Yet still it is necessary to make the application and to state what experiments are to be performed. This is an interesting assumption, for it implies that those wanting to undertake experiments have discovered the truth, that is to say that they know what it is that they want to do – the hallmark of those who inhabit a linear sequential world. The trademark also of European civilisation and a most peculiar way of thinking!

But the world I live in is one where the truth is not known, where problem finding and problem solving are deeply intertwined, where one comes to know the world by a complex integrated process of thinking and doing, which are also deeply intertwined, and where there are interactions taking place with what is happening elsewhere. This is the world of networked non-linear innovation which is a characteristic of the internet, and it is a way of operating that linear sequential minds find difficult to handle, even if they have realised that this is how innovation in the internet comes about. But have they realised this?

Life is a journey of discovery, where experiments are a way of helping to discovery some of the truth! The world on internet innovation is like this as well. And I note that, to use Amazon Web Services (AWS), which is also positioned as a place for internet experimentation, all that is necessary to provide are contact details and a credit card number, which is one of the reasons I will be exploring AWS in the near future and steering clear of FIRE, for it seems also they have decided that they are the ones who will decide who will experiment and who will not. I have no time for such nonsense.

The workshop can be summarised as a lot of conventional thinking and taken for granted assumptions, which only a few, those close to the real world of internet innovation, appeared to recognise as being largely inappropriate. FIRE as it was presented at the workshop assumes a linear process starting from Research and Experimentation, followed by innovation. This is only relevant in certain circumstances, which is something that is not widely understood. One of the speakers clearly understood this, when he referred to what he called the ICT mind-set, and I spoke to him afterwards and then had an exchange of emails after the event. The text of the email follows:

“About what we discussed at the end of the day - the ICT mind-set. It is actually an engineering one from the 19th century, applicable to building bridges but not internet based innovation. What we saw on Thursday were people building FIRE facilities as though they are building bridges; they design it, erect the steel and concrete, and only when it is finished do they allow people to use it. Users are generally not part of this process, for the bridge builders are also experts, and that is another paradigm (experts know best) that is also failing. This is a manifestation of what I call the Prometheus Syndrome and it is destroying Europe economically. This is the sort of thing I write about in my blog. If I were starting a FIRE project I would sign-up to Amazon Web Services (AWS) using my credit card and ask people to use it and start a dialogue with these people about how to improve it, what needs to be added, and so forth, and this is how the Future Internet would emerge.”

Being aware of the existence of another out-dated mind-set, the either/or one, I mention here that obviously such an approach is not relevant to all aspects of the Future Internet development, especially those that users are not interested in, but which they would probably notice in the future if they were not addressed.

What is most interesting is that Amazon is enabling internet innovation through AWS and all one needs is a credit card! This gives both individuals (by which I mean ordinary people who are not part of the ICT research community) and companies (micro, small and large) access to facilities that were once only available to large corporations (and European Commission funded research projects).  This is the sort of discontinuity that renders what Charles Handy wrote about in the 1990s, highly relevant. Handy said that “in the presence of discontinuities, the models of the past serve as no guide to the future, in fact they can be very dangerous; in such circumstances one has to reinvent the world.” He also noted that the people most likely to do this are the ones saying unreasonable things. If you read my blog on a regular basis, you may have noticed that I say a lot of – what seems to those who are trapped in the past – unreasonable things.

Back in 1994 I discussed in a book, many aspects relating to that which is covered above. I noted that it is not new technology that delivers competitive advantage, but the ability to manage, adapt, use and deploy technologies, as part of an approach that also takes into account all the non-technical elements. An ability to be able to adopt different design approaches, the ones that others find difficult to use, which include design strategy switches when these are necessary, is also important. The comment still applies. We are drowning in technology. There will always be more of it. Yet most of it can be imitated, or accessed via licenses. It is not generally a source of differentiation, unless it can be kept hidden, and its presence is not seen. But that in itself is an outdated approach.

The problem is that most people think that technology is at the core of competitiveness, which is an illusion. This mind-set is a techno-centric one. When people look at the world through the lens of technology, all they see is the technology and this leads to people to believe that technology is the most important dimension. This however is an impoverished reductionist view, and only works if everyone else looks at the world through the same lens. But there are new players in the game that do not share these particular European ways of behaving. Europe is no longer able to force the world to be European, so perhaps it is time for Europe to stop being European!

I have had to take to story telling and using metaphors to explain such matters, because few people seem to understand anymore what I and others are talking about. This is also why new perspectives are needed and why artists and writers need to move centre stage, to bring what is called culture-based creativity into the research and innovation process, for it is becoming increasingly evident that those who currently reside in this position – scientists, engineers and technologists – are, on the whole, not going to do very much different from what they have done in the past. As one of them said to me about 4 years ago when we were preparing a proposal that would address user-driven innovation, “it’s a good idea, so long as we do not have to do anything differently.” And I have quotes in my book from 1994 of people saying exactly the same thing, even when confronted with the evidence that shows that new ways of doing things work.

This, whatever you do never ask me to do anything differently mind-set, one can say, summarises the problems that Europe now faces – most of those to whom politicians look to for innovation, do not want to do anything differently. Europe has indeed become like Prometheus. DG CONNECT’s new initiative known as ICT-ART CONNECT, offers the hope of changing this circumstance, of exposing the invisible chains that keep Europe tied to the past, and of smashing them to set Europe free. But this involves doing research and innovation differently, which is why I suppose we will be looking mostly at replacing those who currently undertake this type of work, by developing a new breed of engineers and technologists, for the evidence suggests that the present incumbents will not change and do not want to change, which is the hallmark of something else – a paradigm shift.

So we are back once more to my forthcoming book Moments in Time, a novel about time, set in two times, which explores that which is timeless and that which is not – particularly the values and beliefs of scientists, engineers and technologists, for central character is an engineer, along with his industrial era values, beliefs and mind-set! And from this stems all the troubles that he creates for himself.

The Prometheus Syndrome Explained

In several blog entries I have in the past referred to what I term the Prometheus Syndrome, a condition where people are blind to why they do what they do, being, metaphorically speaking, bound by invisible chains to the rock of the past, which then leads them to create a future that is just the past with all its problems, but usually with a bit more new science, engineering or technology added. This theme and its consequences are explored in my new novel, Moments in Time. Here in this blog I want to explain what the Prometheus Syndrome is in terms of concepts taken from the business and philosophy of science literature.

When I speak of the Prometheus Syndrome I am referring to what is called a paradigm.

Everyone involved in science, technology, engineering, business, economics, and so forth, carries around in their head the paradigm to which they adhere. These consist of a set of core beliefs and assumptions specific and relevant to the activities that people are involved with, and these are shared in common with others. This is the essence of a paradigm: it is taken for granted and not seen as problematic by those who adhere to it. The paradigm defines how things are done and what is acceptable.

A paradigm, however, is a double edged sword, because it is both helpful and unhelpful, depending on the circumstances. Associated with a paradigm is a mind-set, a way of thinking which means that people become over-sensitised to some particular aspect of their domain or available information, at the expense of other parts. This over-sensitising is useful, because it helps people to become sensitised to important things, and to patterns that remind people of problems successfully solved, and this often serves very well.

The problem with paradigms however, is that they blind people to discontinuities that render past approaches and solutions inappropriate. Discontinuities are defined as non-linearities that either render aspects of prevailing practices inappropriate, or which provide new opportunities, or open up entirely new ways of working. These discontinuities can render assumptions and practices invalid and inappropriate. This makes extrapolating into the future based on the past, an exercise of little value. When discontinuities occur, the success stories of yesterday can have little relevance to the problems of tomorrow. In fact, according to Charles Handy, a leading business thinker from the 1990s, these success stories might even be damaging since the world, at every level, has to be reinvented to some extent.

The failure to recognise discontinuities often leads to the adoption of incorrect change strategies. The assumption is that whatever needs to change is just a matter of evolution in approaches. The evolutionary view is based on the belief that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the way things are being done, and that all that is required are some slight adjustments to compensate for the changed circumstances.

The belief that only slight adjustments are needed to a paradigm in order to bring the way things are done into line with new requirements has a technical name. In terms of change this view corresponds to model known as morphostatic change. This simply means that the type of change people face is incremental. The established order is maintained by treating disturbances as external noise requiring minor adjustments.

What the modern world faces at this moment in time, are a massive discontinuities in the form of structural changes that render morphostatic change inappropriate. In circumstances such as those now challenging us to act, what is needed is a major change to the existing paradigms. In terms of the theory of change, what I am advocating is called morphogenic change. This simply means a type of change that produces a different order to that which existed previously. Disturbances are now treated as information about the inappropriateness of established practices, and this leads to fundamental changes in methods and principles.

Incidentally what is written above is not new. Much of the above text is taken from one of my books, published in 1994! This is the measure of how far behind, in terms of thinking, concepts and understandings, the worlds of science, engineering and technology are. One might say that these people work with 21^st century technologies, 21^st century knowledge, but with stone-age minds. This is also partly the answer to the question posed many blogs back, when I asked concerning scientists: why simultaneously so smart yet so stupid? A case of  relatively Advanced Knowledge, coupled with stupid beliefs!

The problem with paradigms is that they blind people, but the problem is compounded by a tendency towards collective denial and delusion, which is another story, more familiar to modern people than Prometheus, and that is the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes. And thus is happens, as the challenges grow, the problems worsen, people will retreat even more into the familiar, seeking to use and apply that which has worked in the past – that which is actually part of the problem.

And what of the consequences for human civilisation, for future generations? Probably you will not live to see the consequences. You will not want to! But our children’s children will encounter these consequences, and they will curse you for not having the vision, the imagination and the courage to confront and stop the lunacy that is driving humanity towards … what I call a future that must not be.

Moments in Time, and my even newer work called Enigma, were both written to help people to understand, as were my other books, Encounter with a Wise Man, and A Tale of Two Deserts. These are part of what I call This is the Journey… But the time for action has now arrived, thus in the coming months I will start to explain about exciting work that is still in its embryonic stages, that will help us to start building a new path for humanity.

It seems that when I say that scientists, engineers and technologist are no longer fit for purpose, others too are arriving at similar conclusions, and that we need now to reinvent these activities by developing new types of scientific, engineering and technological people and processes. I have coined a name for them – Life Systems Architects, although that might change in due course. And what I am saying is that we can no longer afford to have people who live in boxes messing-up the world because of their limited, micro level, blinkered views, and that the time has come to develop trans-disciplinary people who can also call time on the delusion that somehow, all this science and technology is neutral and is not at all a manifestation of the desire of large corporations to make as much money as possible regardless. Dealing with what Steinbeck, in his novel The Grapes of Wrath, called the monster, is necessary if we are to achieve sustainability. And science, engineering and technology have become part of the monster. But it does not have to be like this, but we should be under no illusion – breaking the invisible chains that bind these people to the rock of the past will be a Herculean task.

Farming Fantasies!

Prometheus’ chains were heard clanking once more on BBC1’s Countryfile programme, which is becoming quite a regular feature of the programme. I am referring here to the edition transmitted on Sunday January 26 (2014) and the person bound to the rock of the past and whose chains were clanking, was Rory Stewart, a Member of Parliament, whose constituency is in the Lake District, which includes many sheep farms. And it was sheep farming that was being discussed, and the damage that the current dominant method is causing to the eco-system – the usual story of a system developed long ago without regard for the environment and nature, based on mono-culture, resulting in a desert with respect to bio-diversity, as well as many unforeseen damaging impacts for life, including human life. Discussed in the report were some of these damaging impacts, and what some organisations (in this case the RSPB) – those aware of the importance of the eco-system to our own survival – are doing to re-invent sheep farming, which includes elements of re-wilding, to find a way of undertaking this important activity in a way that co-exists with nature. The approach is to move towards diversity and not to have a single dominant activity.

Here now I will report verbatim, the derisory words spoken by this Member of Parliament about these efforts: clank, clank, clank ...

“Look at the entire fell-side behind me. You’re not going to be able to see a single sheep. This is a sheep farming area, but what’s happening is something really weird – essentially a group of intellectuals are imposing their fantasies on the landscape, and their fantasy is that they’re living in a wilderness, and they’re trying to create a landscape that hasn’t existed here for 3000 years. I think it’s a tragedy. I think there’s a place for bits of forestry, there’s a place for bits of bird sanctuary, but we have to protect the human.”

Clank, clank, clank ...

I observe here that this is a mis-representation of what the RSPB are trying to do, but this matter aside, what is interesting here are the fantasies underlying these comments.

The fantasies are clear: we can live without nature, and that nature’s place is in reservations and by implication, nature can continue to exist if we turn the planet into mono-cultures, with islands of bio-diversity where nature can continue as before. Moreover, we have a right to do this, and it is our place to decide. We can control nature, we can dominate nature. What is most important is human economic activity and if nature has to die to enable this, then so be it. When you sow the wind, you do NOT reap the whirlwind. Clank, clank, clank ...

These are more than fantasies, they are dangerous delusions, but at least he did not pretend, as many do, that somehow, in ways most mysterious, this mono-culture approach to farming can be made sustainable by implementing small changes.

Now perhaps, if you had not yet realised this, you see the scale of the challenge that we face and how people, not knowing, not understanding, not wanting to, will condemn future generations to live in a world that no sane person would want to live in. This will be our legacy to future generations if we do not now act to ensure that this does not happen. And there are ways in which we can all peacefully act that will ensure that this unwanted future does not materialise, and about this I will have more to say during 2014.

For the moment I limit my comments to this: it time to begin to understand, to make that journey of discovery that will lead to a realisation that alternatives are possible, which can result to a world and a way of life far better than the one we have now. And this is why I write and I am just on the verge of publishing a story about a person who thinks along the familiar lines that we are in control and that the risks can be managed. The book is called Moments in Time. This is a story about time, and that which is timeless and that which is not, which explores the delusions of one man, an icon of the modern world, an engineer, who, believing these things, ends up destroying everything of value in his life because of these beliefs. In the first chapter the central character observes that he has become like Prometheus!

The book will be published at the end of February and will be available open access so that people can read it on-line, for free. It will also be available in paperback and in eBook formats. I also have another book in preparation called Enigma. This deals with certain type of lunacy of the type found in the minds of people such as the Member of Parliament interviewed on Countryfile; a madness which can be found in many aspects of the modern world – in religion, and also in the religions known as science, engineering, technology and free market economics – which is, as I observe in my book called Encounter with a Wise Man, leading humanity to the creation of a hell on earth from which there will be no escape, where delusion will be the only way of living and coping with what humanity will have created.