First off less than 2% of Congress totaling 535 members, have professional backgrounds in science, whereas there are 222 lawyers.

When in 1987 the Federal Communications Commission removed the fairness doctrine of how difficult or controversial news was reported it open the door to more extreme punditry, take a bow Rush Limbaugh. And we have witnessed an increasing line of anti-science perspectives from Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, with the whip held by Newt Gringrich.

And Otto argues right now science is under threat by anti-climate change organisations – between 2009 and June 2010 the energy industry spent half a billion dollars fighting climate change legislation. He writes that 96 of the 100 newly elected Republican members of Congress deny outright that climate change is real or are voting against it in one form or another.

That said Otto argues there are complex forces that are shaping the debate on public perceptions towards science, ‘the moral ambiguity createdafter the dropping of the Atom bomb and living in a nuclear MAD world’, or some of the terrible excesses of toxic pollution that killed and maimed ordinary people – coupled with the culpability of government, the effects of postmodernism on the one hand and the rise of fundamentalist religion on the other smashing into each other. A deep distrust arouse around government and science.

This is the volatile cocktail that combines – commerce, science, truth and politics and results says Otto on an assault on American science that is unprecedented. Though the Barack Obama administration does not get away with it scott free

President Obama’s not much better. Running strong on climate change in 2008, he has since totally de-prioritized it, apparently marginalizing his scientist appointees like Chu, Holdren and Lubchenco, all of them outspoken on climate change, and now appears to be moving ahead with offshore oil drilling, lower air pollution standards, poor carbon standards, and the Keystone XL oil pipeline. In a time when the science has only advanced further and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences says anthropogenic global warming should be “regarded as settled facts” — a time when China’s leapfrogging ahead on clean energy investments in the next economy, that’s not going to take America where we need to go.

Finally Otto refers to ScienceDebate2012 as he describes it, ‘a grassroots campaign for a presidential debate on science, technology, health, medicine and the environment’. Which was born out of Science Debate 2008 which was the largest political initiative in the history of American science.

We are on a journey from a linear world to a non-linear one (click here for more information) and we need good science to come with us. To attempt to shout down science, diminishes us all and limits the possibilities of our world.

For more information on Otto’s perspective read New Scientist October 27th 2011 (subscription required) or the Huffington Post- The un-American war on Science.

Shawn Otto has written book called Fool Me Twice: fighting thee assault on science in America

Over a matter of days, the code was hacked and made open. As a consequence, (Inside the race to hack the Kinect)

The hackers’ success has unlocked what promises to be a revolution in robotics research. At robotics company Willow Garage in Palo Alto, California, researchers have bought around 20 Kinects. “We’re losing count,” says engineer Ken Conley. He and colleagues have shown that multiple Kinects can be combined without generating interference and are currently integrating the device into the company’s PR2 robot.

At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, engineer Philipp Robbel has already run a proof-of-concept experiment in which he used the Kinect to provide vision for a robot. He says the Kinect could one day help produce cheap robots that could scour disaster areas for victims.

All amazing stuff – of course the story questions orthodox issues around IP, the nature of value creation, innovation and entrepreneurship – what is shared or what be shared to kickstart innovation and what is not. Commonwealth in the networked society [3] Big Pharma

As this video shows Kinect controlling Windows 7

And body dysmorphic disorder

Body Dysmorphic Disorder from flight404 on Vimeo.

Patrick and I met earlier this year, when he overheard me. discussing the No Straight Lines project with someone in a coffee shop in Cambridge. So Patrick contacted me, and this is what he had to say.

What you seem to be talking about runs in parallel to much of the social theory being used within archaeological theory today. Basically, many archaeologists are now beginning to realise that the behaviour of people (I am referring to stuff that was going one about 20,000 years ago when mobile art, figurines and parietal – cave – art largely first appeared in Europe) had much to do with building and maintaining networks, not just with people but also with other elements of the world). Of particular interest is that some archaeologists are now discussing the role of possessing and interacting with mobile (e.g. animal) figurines as a means of creating and maintaining human identity. Much of the ethnographic data suggests that these people actually thought of these objects, and other things in the world, as actually being part of them in a very real way. Thus, when objects such as these are exchanged, it is not simply that they represent the identity of a person (e.g. relative): they actually are part of the person. Archaeologists are also beginning to employ social theories such as Actor-Network Theory to explore such concepts.

What I have now realised is that the way that people engage with objects and media (e.g. mobile phones) in the Western’ world today is not so different to 20,000 years ago. I am not saying that people thought about the world in the same way. But what seems to be apparent, especially with the enormous rise of social networking today, is that human identity is embodied with in the very objects (real and virtual) that people use, and when people communicate with each other it is not simply a matter of communication, but it is in a very real way part of themselves that is being sent/communicated. This is very interesting, because human identity then becomes something which is not confined to the immediacy of the person and the immediate surrounding world, but is distributed throughout the world in the form of pictures, emails etc. Interaction with these things (both real and virtual) then becomes a matter of necessity, as it did during the Palaeolithic, as their identity or personhood is embodied within these things. No longer can be people be socially secure (i.e. interact with important elements of the known world on a regular basis) through normal modes of communication: in order to maintain a sense of social cohesion people must now continually interact with elements of their identity that are distributed throughout the globe via objects (e.g. phones). Social cohesion becomes a matter of remote rather than direct interaction.

My simple observation is that if we are are designing a society and world that is becoming more inherently social through connectivity, this has to relate to identity, and meaning. How we create meaning. We cannot ignore that for many people modern life is rubbish, or that the shopping mall really is Van Diemens land. As I wrote in that post

For me this is the backdrop to perhaps some of the biggest, and perhaps intractable problems of our current society. Loss of identity, belonging, and community – with all its subsequent fallout.

In the issue of identity in a post modern world, psychologist Sandra Harilld points out

Until postmodern times, we dealt with problems that had their origins in relation to the other or the outside in a concrete way and in imagination problems tended to come from people with psychosis or personality disorders. We are still getting those problems but what has changed for some people are the triggers to illness, in so much as people who do not have a strong inner sense of self tend to feel more fragmented more easily and the idea of self construction is very threatening to these types of people.

They seem to need more direct human contact to help them to define themselves and years ago would have been defined and lived within the confines of their families, villages, social classes or friends, with daily personal interaction reinforcing that. So, for instance, we see a lot of phobias and depressions, particularly problems such as social phobia that are linked to this fearfulness of how to be in the world and whether one is acceptable or not.

And in my post human nature and the need for social connection, I point out using the work of John T. Cacioppo and William Patrick, that,

Looking more deeply at the invisible forces that link one human being to another helps us see something even more profound: our brains and bodies are designed to function in aggregates, not in isolation. That is the essence of an obligatory gregarious species. The attempt to function in denial of our need for others, whether that need is great or small in any given individual, violates our design specifications.

Indeed, violating our design specifications in a profound way, “I” needs “We” to truly be “I” was the maxim of Carl Jung, as told by Charles Handy in The Hungry Spirit. The industrial age has done some fantastic things for us – but it also has stripped away for many of us what makes us human n the first place. In this context, I am frustrated with the word, “social media” as it just cannot describe the true reality of what is going on in the world we live in today. This perspective is I argue as relevant to business as it is organisations, as it is to education, and lastly to each and every one of us. Because, I think it alters the way we make things, and get stuff done. These are the drivers to the networked world where as Jan van Dijk explains,

In a mass media society, the basic units are the large collective ‘masses’. In contrast, a network society is based on individuals who form voluntary connections with other individuals regardless of location. In a network society, the network becomes a basic unit of organization at all levels (individuals, groups and organizations). Online social networks, media networks and technology networks act as the catalysts for a networked society

Didier Marlier writes,

Daniel relates an interesting study run by the famous M.I.T. seeking to understand the impact of financial incentives on employees’ motivation. Participants were offered low, medium or high financial reward depending on their results in a series of tasks going from physical, mechanistic (boring and repetitive) to more highly cognitive  (interesting) ones. The results showed that people tended indeed to perform better when offered higher financial rewards on physical/mechanistic jobs but that higher financial compensations were in fact counterproductive for cognitive, “intellectual” tasks.

Pinks discussion reminds me of my posts The craftsman and the special human need to be engaged, and The craftsman and modern society. He talks about peoples need to be self-directed (Gen-C don’t live to work), which is very much a part of the values of our networked world. Pink argues for a more human approach to organisations that understands how and why people work, something that I explored in Modern life is rubbish.

John Underkoffler speaking about the way in which ui will change how we interface in the world

His story is one that around the world in different cultures, we experience depression, and describe mental trauma in a rich variety of ways, for example a,

Nigerian man might experience a culturally distinct form of depression by describing a “peppery” feeling in his head, while a Chinese farmer might speak only of shoulder or stomach aches. Salvadorean women refugees suffering psychological trauma after a long civil war, on the other hand, often experience something called calorias, a feeling of intense body heat.

For a long time, psychiatrists and medical anthropologists studying mental illness in different cultures found that mental illnesses are not evenly distributed globally, and do not take the same form from place to place. Unfortunately, mental health professionals in the US, who dominate the global discussion about how mental illnesses are categorised and treated, have often ignored or dismissed these differences.

Watters argues that what big pharma is doing is reaching to the world and describing peoples well-being in their own terms for their own benefit.

local versions of mental illnesses are now being homogenised into American versions at an extraordinary rate.

This for me is when one can refer to the dysfunctional nature of an industrial system – mass markets no longer defined by ones territory, and that’s OK – but when the corporation becomes more important then those that it is meant to serve you kind of think the game is up. Watters expands his thinking in Crazy Like US. Laurence Kirmayer wrote

The clinical presentation of depression and anxiety is a function not only of patients’ ethnocultural backgrounds, but of the structure of the healthcare system they find themselves in and the diagnostic categories and concepts they encounter in mass media and in dialogue with family, friends and clinicians,” Kirmayer wrote later in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

In other words, there is a great deal here about the context of identity, in relation to the culture one lives in etc., All a bit of a pain in the backside when all one wants to do is shift vary large quantities of something. Watters tells to the story of how the pharmaceutical giant GSK redefined mental health issues in Japan to sell its drug Paroxetine. The result, as reported by Watters and Kirmayer was,

“What I was witnessing was a multinational pharmaceutical corporation working hard to redefine narratives about mental health,” Kirmayer said. “These changes have far-reaching effects, informing the cultural conceptions of personhood and how people conduct their everyday lives. And this is happening on a global scale. These companies are upending long-held cultural beliefs about the meaning of illness and healing.”

Now is that a good thing? As we have witnessed when people are cut adrift from culture (here) and (here) that they can identify with, when they face a world in which they are unsure and uncertain – terrible things can happen, as people struggle to make sense of a world in which they are fearful. For example until postmodern times, we dealt with problems that had their origins in relation to the other or the outside in a concrete way and in imagination problems tended to come from people with psychosis or personality disorders. A friend of mine, a clinical psychologist, says, we are still getting those problems but what has changed for some people are the triggers to illness, in so much as people who do not have a strong inner sense of self tend to feel more fragmented more easily and the idea of self construction is very threatening to these types of people. She goes on

These people seem to need more direct human contact to help them to define themselves and years ago would have been defined and lived within the confines of their families, villages, social classes or friends, with daily personal interaction reinforcing that. So, for instance, we see a lot of phobias and depressions, particularly problems such as social phobia that are linked to this fearfulness of how to be in the world and whether one is acceptable or not.

So I wonder what makes it a good idea to help other cultures be more like us – its appears that we have enough problems of our own?

So if you want to follow the No Straight Line rule of doing something. Get over to and get stuck in with Ecotopia.

Become the change you want to see in the world.

Copying, with variation and selection. Susan Blackmore gives a highly entertaining presentation.

Meme machines and gene machines and Techno-memes is the her passion.

She says that we are merging with technology… how far will we converge?

Cognitive Edge

MONEY has thrown society out of kilter. Banks that once appeared to have mountains of cash have collapsed. As a consequence of the global recession, governments now recognise that banking is too important to be left to the bankers. States have taken action, from wresting control of financial institutions to introducing new regulations.

I believe the financial meltdown has implications for pharmaceutical research. The running of large pharmaceutical companies carries a social responsibility that is as heavy as running any bank. Recently, however, this unwritten contract between society and drug companies has not been fulfilled. Is our health now too important to be left to big pharma?

This is very much along the lines of the No Straight Lines ethos, and touches on the Commonwealth Series that a networked and opens source approach could deliver for society and commerce and enterprise. Martin continues,

To illustrate my concerns, let’s look at the treatment of heart disease. Many important cardiovascular drugs have been invented: statins, ACE inhibitors, beta blockers, fibrinolytics. But in the last 10 years, few of significance have emerged, even though the pharmaceutical industry has spent unprecedented amounts of money on research and development: in each year of that decade, Pfizer spent about $6 billion, Eli Lilly $3bn, and GlaxoSmithKline $2.5bn.

This splurge is reminiscent of how banks misused their funds before their collapse, but the industry has been insulated from the recent economic changes and has accumulated vast cash piles from the sales of medicines (in the UK, mostly through sales to the National Health Service). On average, each top-20 pharmaceutical company has access to about $7.5bn in cash.

Could the cash piles of big pharma be mobilised in a more efficient way for the public good?

Exactamondo!!! Richard Sennett believes that Closed Knowledge Systems ultimately tend to fail. The last question Martin poses also got me thinking about Jeff Saperstein, who argues that there is a particular process by which one inspires true innovation, that can also have knock on effects for regional economic development these are:

1. Attitude drives accomplishment
2. Reverence for knowledge
3. Openness to new ideas
4. Flexibility to adapt
5. Capacity to work with people from other cultures

And

1. Education and investment in people is a clear priority for governments
2. Major universities
3. Regional technical colleges
4. Research institutions

Saperstein makes this observation: a convergence of societal institutions must work together for a region to succeed.

In 2006 SMLXL came across a science based research community called SIPHS – here is the post

SIPHS , a tool that leverages an online community in a different fashion: rather than searching for online documents, users search for community members with a particular knowledge set. We established SIPHS in response to a shared frustration. The Internet was designed to put people in touch, but it is quite difficult to identify individuals that possess very specific, often highly technical knowledge.

Members of SIPHS can search for peer-generated information, ask questions of other members, and provide peer support

Members of SIPHS is currently comprised of more than 200 biology and biomedical researchers spread across 30 countries. Members of the community are tagged with their respective areas of expertise, and queries for information are submitted via an electronic message to experts in relevant fields. By enabling direct communication with knowledgeable and experienced individuals, refining searches becomes easier (as searching is no longer keyword dependent), background information is more quickly clarified, and new ideas are more rapidly spawned. In essence, this mimics the offline world in that the best source of information is often a colleague who has experience with the problem at hand. SIPHS is self-funded and, like all the tools mentioned in this discussion, free to use.

And John Martin makes the same observation

Increasing spending on R&D cannot be continued indefinitely with such meagre progress. If a collapse of the pharmaceutical industry does occur it might not be for decades, but one of the biggest lessons of the banking collapse is that no one can predict economic forces with much certainty. The fall of big pharma could be imminent.

There is another way to fund the development of new treatments. Many innovative ideas that have changed society have arisen from the combination of curiosity and academic freedom found in universities. This is where small amounts of funding can produce big results. In recent years, university research has been exploited by industry to produce new drugs, such as blood clot-busting “tissue plasminogen activator”, courtesy of the Catholic University of Leuven (KUL) in Belgium.

Now, while big pharma has so much money it doesn’t know what to do with it, universities are being starved of resources and research funding has decreased in real terms. At the same time, university research strategy is under-organised and there is ignorance of how to exploit intellectual property and utilise patents. Nevertheless, the potential of universities is enormous.

In a perfect world, scientists share problems and work together on solutions for the good of society, writes the Harvard Business Review, However, real life is not like that, key obstacles: competition for publication and intellectual property protection.

So the question is… is there a model for encouraging large-scale scientific problem solving? Yes, and it comes from an unexpected and unrelated corner of the universe: open source software development, argues Karim R. Lakhani, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School. His research leads to these conclusions

1. Practices in the open source software community offer a model for encouraging large-scale scientific problem solving.
2. Open up your problem to other people in a systematic way. A problem may reside in one domain of expertise and the solution may reside in another.
3. Find innovative licensing ways or legal regimes that allow people to share knowledge without risking the overall intellectual property of the firm.

So on one hand we have an unproductive big pharma which is cash rich, writes John Martin, ‘and on the other a cash-poor university system that has produced fistfuls of Nobel prizewinners. The way forward is obvious: inject the money into university research. Experience tells us this can have major benefits. One of the most successful initiatives in the last decade has been the spin-out of small biotech firms. Biogen sprang from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Genentech from the University of California, San Francisco.

Martin argues: that one hundred new companies could be created from British universities alone over 10 years if big pharma money were blended with a proactive way of recognising patentable inventions and managing university science.

And perhaps this is the way to do it, according to Karim R. Lakhani

Open source collaboration is a very different model for innovation and product development than most firms are used to. I began to wonder where we might see similar patterns occur outside the software domain. In open source communities we see a vast degree of openness in which everybody can participate, but also the practice of broadcasting your work to everybody else. People continually broadcast their problems, others broadcast solutions, and the person with the problem is not always the one with the solution. Oftentimes, somebody else can make sense of both what the problem has been and what people are proposing as solutions, and can come up with a better answer.

Harnessing collective intelligence, motivating people through commercial and reputational rewards and connecting individual knowledge up to the network means that with many eyes all bugs are shallow. By big pharma unleashing its vast cashpile and investing in the right way – it would also put the pedal to the metal in terms of rapid innovation and development. This whole approach of locked down thinking, patents and IP – gets in the way of real innovation. Its  a mindset issue, a philosophical issue, and a human issue.

Straight Line thinking stops here.