Learning to rhyme: reflections on foresight STEPS Conference 24th September 2010 Michael Reilly Foresight Research and Knowledge Management Government Office for Science
Jun 07, 2015
Learning to rhyme: reflections on
foresight
STEPS Conference24th September 2010
Michael ReillyForesight Research and Knowledge ManagementGovernment Office for Science
What is Foresight?
Mental Capital
and Wellbeing
Sustainable
Energy & the Built
Environment
Detection &
Identification of
Infectious Diseases
Intelligent
Infrastructure
Systems
Brain Science
Addiction & Drugs
Land Use Futures
Flooding &
Coastal
Defence
Cyber Trust &
Crime Prevention
Exploiting the
Electromagnetic
Spectrum
Tackling Obesities:
Future Choices
Four discussion points on anticipating future
critical transitions and tipping points
• Exploring the future is contingent on understanding the past but without
becoming beholden to history
• Social structures create noise that can that make it difficult for us to hear the
signal of transition
• Need to improve our knowledge on social system dynamics at micro and
macro levels
• Could a data revolution and improved modelling capability be in of itself a
critical transition?
Societal influencesIndividual
psychology
Biology
Activity
environment
Individual
activityFood
ConsumptionFood Production
Obesity Systems Map1
Four key variables that act as conduits of
dispersed changes into the core engine2
Social Flood Vulnerability Index was a lens to
explore critical transitions for flooding in the UK3,4
Basic disease model – a systematic method for
gathering informed opinion and insights5
Zoonoses identified as one of eight global
disease risks6,7
Cognitive resilience and reserve are important
aspects of mental capital8
Cognitive resilience
“an individual’s successful adaptation
and functioning in the face of stress or
trauma”
• Predictors for children - high levels
of intellectual functioning, strong
attachment behaviour, optimism,
altruism and active coping styles
• Predictors for adults - group
bonding, altruism and effective
performance under stress
• Religious coping and social support
also confer resilience
• May become possible to strengthen
resilience through pharmacological
and non-pharmacological means
Cognitive reserve
“an individual’s resistance to
impairment in cognitive processes eg
memory, reasoning and attention”
•Evidence that education and
occupational social class provide
some cognitive reserve
•Appears to be affected by
environmental factors acting during
adulthood
•Recent evidence suggests that
cognitive reserve is not fixed, and can
be increased through physical or
mental activity, social stimulation, and
potentially also through medication or
dietary interventions
The volatility of the price of rice has risen
significantly in the last twenty years9
Changes in volatility over time. Lavender coloured bars, 1970–1989; magenta bars,
1990–2009.
Export restrictions played a particularly
significant role in the rice price peak of 200810
The effects of export restrictions on rice, 2007/08
William Sewell suggested a simple duality of
social structure that can explain transformation11
• Cultural schemas (or rules) are the code (or DNA) of a society
• Resources embody their and fortify their schemas
• Social structures therefore have reproductive bias
• But transformation in social structure can be explained
• Structures are diverse, subject to agency, they can intersect, schemas are
transposable, resource accumulation is unpredictable
Diffusion of innovation has two complementary
theories based on weak and strong social ties
• Weak ties (eg acquaintances) can
provide remarkable shortcuts
between remote clusters12
• Takes only a small fraction of these
shortcuts to reduce the degree of
separation in highly clustered
networks13
• But strong ties (eg friends) may be
required to provide social
reinforcement for adoption of
riskier innovations14
• Social relations, structure and
network size are important
explanatory variables
Can demographic-structural theory explain
critical socio-political transitions in history15?
Low; Rate of growth
accelerates
Low to moderate
numbers; modest
consumption
Low point
Increasing
Increasing; a ‘golden
age’
High; Rate of growth
decelerates
Competition;
conspicuous cons.;
counter-elites
Low but increasing
Stagnant or declining in
real terms; heavy
burden on peasantry
High but unravelling;
resistance to taxation
Declines; Rate of
decline accelerates
High numbers; conflict
Peaks
Tax system in state of
crisis
Uprisings; interelite
conflicts;
Low; Declines or
stagnates
Reductions; civil war
and downward mobility;
consumption collapse
High but declining
Variable; periods of high
taxes alternate with
collapse of system
Recurrent civil war;
political fragmentation
Expansion Stagflation Crisis Depression/Intercycle
Integrative secular trend Disintegrative secular trend
Population dynamics
Elite dynamics
Socio-political
instability
Taxes
Internal peace and
order
Variables
References
1. Foresight. 2007. Tacking Obesities. Government Office for Science
2. Ibid.
3. Foresight. 2004. Volume I: Future risks and their drivers. Flooding and Coastal
Defence. Office for Science and Innovation.
4. Tapsell, S.M et al. 2002. Vulnerability to flooding: health and social dimensions. Phil.
Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A 360, 1511-1525
5. Foresight. 2006. Risk analysis. The Detection and Identification of Infectious
Diseases.
6. Foresight. 2006. Future Threats. The Detection and Identification of Infectious
Diseases.
7. Zommers, Z. and McDonald, D. 2006. The wildlife trade and global disease
emergence. Office for Science and Innovation.
8. Foresight. 2008. Mental capital through life: future challenges. Mental Capital and
Wellbeing. Government Office for Science.
References
9. Gilbert, C.L. and Morgan, C.W. 2010. Food price volatility. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 365,
3023-3034.
10. International Food Research Policy Institute.
11. Sewell, W. H. 1992. A theory of structure: duality, agency and transformation. The
American Journal of Sociology 98, 1-29.
12. Granovetter, M.S. 1973. The strength of weak ties. The American Jounral of
Sociology 78, 1360-1380
13. Watts, D. J. and Strogatz, S.H. 1998. Collective dynamics of ‘small-worl’ networks.
Nature 393, 440-442.
14. Centola, D. and Macy, M. 2005. Complex contagion and the weakness of long ties.
15. Turchin, P. and Nefedov, S. 2009. Secular cycles. US; Princeton University Press.
Learning to rhyme: reflections on
foresightMichael Reilly, Foresight Research STEPS Conference24th September 2010