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