RSA blogs - Latest Comments

Re: The Stockport Experiment

Ian Pettigrew — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:15:39 -0000

I'd echo Helen's comments and it was really interesting to be part of the discussion about the town where I live. It was an incredibly productive discussion and it was great to have a diverse mix of people with a common interest!

Re: The Stockport Experiment

Helen — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:47:40 -0000

As a long time Stockport resident with a business based in the town, it was great to spend an evening with other like-minded souls talking about the issues and challenges for the town in a candid, open and friendly atmosphere. But more importantly, to see where this might lead...

Re: Throwing out the baby, not the bathwater

clivepinder — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:41:42 -0000

Maybe I am missing something. I thought you were advocating a framework. Principles dont need a framework, what they need is compatable behaviour! PS Rather than 'love thy neighbour' I would settle for treat your neighbour as you would wish to be treated. I dont need nr want to love everyone. I'll leave that sentiment for Oscar winners t make in their acceptance speeches.

Re: Throwing out the baby, not the bathwater

Emma Lindley — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:34:29 -0000

If you wanted an organising principle 'love thy neighbour' would be a good start.

Re: Throwing out the baby, not the bathwater

clivepinder — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:27:08 -0000

I understand and indeed sometimes feel that Dawkins is becoming a pastiche of the very thing he is trying to destroy!

Re: Throwing out the baby, not the bathwater

Emma Lindley — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:20:33 -0000

Thanks Clive.

What I'm ultimately trying to say is that atheism is not a religion, and I think de Botton's attempt to get people thinking that it is somehow analogous to religion is really dodgy.

I'm an atheist. I have a set of values which I try to live by. I am influenced by Quakerism and Buddhism, but I don't belong to either religion. So, I'm running around in the shower too, and I'm also quite happy with that.

But, if you're going to start organising atheists into pseudo-religious practices, you need to be damn careful about the philosophical foundations of it.

Re: Throwing out the baby, not the bathwater

clivepinder — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:45:28 -0000

"It only works if we reach a conceptual consensus of what love is first." A consenus on what love is....the sort of thinking that may make sense in North Korea or Brave New Wolrd, but not in a world of free thought, free expression and individualim please.
"And, what religion offers is a values-based foundation for this process, which insists on depth." The values of organised religion may be apparent. Alas the behaviour of those who practice it suggests that the 'depth' is only skin deep and rarely translates into reality. Emma may want a baby in the bath. Having seen what the 'framework' of organised religion breeds, many of us aetheists are quite comfortable running around in the shower!

Re: Realism in a time of crisis

Emma Lindley — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:23:31 -0000

Thanks for that David. They're big questions, but I'll have a stab at showing how realist methodology can help shed some light on them in another blog post, when I get chance.

Re: Realism in a time of crisis

DavidH — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:08:00 -0000

In the past 150 years the world has made unbelievable
progress as a result of the “scientific ” research approach, There is the however the
feeling that the complexity and diversity of the up and coming problems are overwhelming
the old ways (for example how to maintain a growth economy, what does society
with an ageing population look like and how do we make the adjustment to a knowledge
society from an industrial economy) I
would be interested in a discussion on how new research methods will help give us insights into some
of these complex policy questions. Some examples would help us who find the ins
and outs of some of the new methods described hard to follow

Re: The Optimism Bias (2)

Jonathanrowson — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 06:19:13 -0000

Thanks Sarit :-)

Re: The Optimism Bias (2)

Jonathanrowson — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 06:18:58 -0000

Thanks Indy. I make a similar argument in the first post...but I like the idea that we should emphasise 'safety in numbers' as a bulwark against individual cognitive weaknesses....of course then you might have problems with groupthink etc...

Re: The Optimism Bias (2)

Sarit — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 02:51:00 -0000

Great! Now I can go and fight wind mills all over the place, in higher degree of passion

Re: The Optimism Bias (2)

Andrewarmour2011 — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:21:13 -0000

An interesting talk and topic. My build is that optimism does not automatically lead to recklessness- but that we should recognise our automatic bias when confronted with extraordinary projections. Its a question of understanding the trait but not to nurture pessimism or cynicism, as not much creativity and progress grows from this.

I've published my own blog on this too, looking at the topic from a risk and innovation perspective. See http://goo.gl/Pfp4J

Best,

Andrew Armour FRSA
www.andrewarmour.com
www.benchstone.co.uk

Re: The Optimism Bias (2)

Indy Neogy — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:17:33 -0000

For me, the key thing to draw from the Optimism Bias work is a reminder that what works at the micro (individual) level does not necessarily work at the macro level.

Optimism works for individuals, largely, success goes to those who believe in the possibility.

For example, it has been documented that entrepreneurs generally have an extra level of optimism bias, that helps them fight through the difficulties to reach their goals. However, the macro reality is that 50% of new businesses fail within 4 years of starting up.

That doesn't mean we should be discouraging individuals from being optimistic enough to start a new business. It does mean that we should (as a society) look at ways to help cushion the social effects of the 50% of failures.

Of course the policies put in place to do such cushioning may well be produced in a fog of optimism bias, but I think it's still a concretely valuable thing to realise that one of the best roles for collective action is to utilise the fact that we're not over-optimistic about others and help build safety nets for everyone.

BTW, I agree with your thoughts on the potential value of mindfulness techniques in dealing with the optimism bias.

Re: Realism in a time of crisis

NikhilChaundry — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 15:42:16 -0000

Give me a reason why Obama is a realist?

Re: Realism in a time of crisis

sgediting — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:01:45 -0000

Very interesting and enjoyable. A propos of which, someone complained recently that Obama was "too much of a realist" to be effective, and I said that these days, being a realist made you a real radical.

Re: Mistakes, integrity and being a professional

Jerome Daculan — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:22:30 -0000

Brig Gen Malham M. Wakin once stated in the article he wrote called Professional Integrity for Air Power Journal (1996) that “we want to live in a world where the duties of a competent professional can be carried out by a good person with a clear and confident conscience” (p.28). Although this may not be necessarily true among the professionals in this day and age, most of the members of the society, including myself, still holds on to the belief and idea that the medical professionals in our society are competent and knowledgeable in the specific medical discipline in which they choose to practice in. Also, the society places great expectations and utmost trust on the medical councils governing the medical professionals in ensuring that their practicing members have been thoroughly trained, and exercise personal and professional conduct and integrity in providing the medical services the society needs. It is, therefore, not surprising that there was a public outcry and fury surrounding Gideon Lauffer’s reinstatement into the medical profession despite over 20 cases of his gross negligence as a general surgeon that compromised his patients’ health and lives. He has betrayed the trust that the society bestowed upon him and upon every practicing medical professional not only because he was simply incompetent in general surgery but also because he did not have the personal and professional integrity to admit to himself and to his profession that he was not capable and competent enough as a surgeon which cost his patients’ well-being and claimed a couple of their lives.
Wakin (1996) discussed that integrity is the term (or virtue) we now use to describe consistently knowing and doing the right things. Lauffer displayed the lack of personal integrity because he failed to acknowledge that, by knowingly denying his surgical incompetence, he had placed his patients in an even greater risk, and also because he personally ignored being honest and truthful enough to seek more training and guidance in the areas he was not up to the standards (of competency) in. He, instead, consistently dismissed a basic moral principle that we rational beings owe to each other not to harm others or put them in harm’s way.
Wakin (1996) also suggested that, aside form exercising personal integrity, professionals should also include role-specific obligations and responsibilities inherent in their particular professions towards the society. Lauffer exhibited his lack of professional integrity as he chose to disregard his social and professional obligations to abide by the conduct and values of his profession, as stated by General Medical Council, to protect the public, to be honest, and to be committed to excellence. He basically threw those professional values out the window when he intentionally ignored his surgical shortcomings and chose to carry on performing surgical procedures at his patients’ expense.
It is also not surprising that the public was pointing a finger at the General Medical Council not just because of Lauffer’s reinstatement as a junior A & E doctor but also to question the levels of standards of training and evaluation the medical council has set for the profession. Medical legislation and the society expect that high enough standards should have been set by GMC during the learning and training of medical practitioners and continuous evaluation of their performance and competency as they are practicing various medical disciplines. And rightfully so since the medical profession, unlike any other profession, deals with people’s health and lives and, therefore, have extremely high risks when mistakes and negligence occur particularly in the surgical area. This unfortunate event begs to question how Gideon Lauffer got the license to become a surgeon in the first place and how he was still allowed to operate on patients after his earlier surgical mistakes. GMC wanted a much harsher punishment for Lauffer and disallow him to practice medicine in any field but the decision to reinstate him into the medical profession was a decision made by an independent panel.
Whatever the basis or criteria used by the independent panel chosen to investigate his medical misadventures were and whatever the circumstances or reasons for his gross negligence were, I agree that Gideon Lauffer should not have been allowed to practice any discipline of medicine anymore because of his lack of professional and personal integrity and responsibility, and because he had compromised far too many patients’ health and lost two too many lives for his negligence and mistakes and, in the process, destroyed the society’s trust. Although Lauffer is not legally guilty for any crime or intentional malicious acts, he is, in my opinion, morally guilty of intentionally putting other people’s lives and well-being at more risk than necessary and professionally guilty of intentionally failing to achieve or maintain the level of medical competency and conduct required in the practice of medicine.

Re: Bobby Baker – an artist at the RSA

Jolene Crawford — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:00:07 -0000

thanks for this, I'd not heard of her, but will certainly go off and do my research now as sounds so good

Re: Changing the world, one network at a time

alex.watson — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 07:28:22 -0000

Great post Jamie, thematic networks have witnessed great growth in the(almost) two years I've been here and we welcome more. Just to reiterate the point that they are a great test-bed for Catalyst-supported ventures, of the six grants announced on Monday (http://www.thersa.org/fellowsh..., two got input from thematic networks and a further two from local networks.

Re: How to understand the psychology of active citizenship

MatthewMezey — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:57:40 -0000

Hi Christian,

I'm even more intrigued how :-)

Is any of Per Sjölander's work on the World Values Survey conversion available in English?

I'd love to read it.

By the way, a New Zealand-focused book called 'Spiral of Values', by Alan Webster, took the World Values Survey/Inglehart work and converted it into Spiral Dynamics stages, if I remember correctly...

I'll be very impressed indeed if you manage to automate either a Loevinger or a Kegan tool. A lot of interesting possibilities could open up!

Susanne Cook-Greuter herself (in her chapter in The Postconventional Personality) argues that "it is unlikely that scoring the postconventional tier can be successfully automatised" - because of unique sentence completions that appear in no manual etc.

Matthew

Re: People, Patterns and Problems

Jamie Young — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 09:32:48 -0000

Thanks to everyone for taking the time to leave a comment. We'll feed these responses into the next stage... watch this space!

Re: Wellbeing without art

Boz — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 08:54:36 -0000

Measuring the immeasurable to fit humanity into boxes! Good to see game theory is alive an well...

Re: Wellbeing without art

Jonathanrowson — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 06:25:45 -0000

Reminded me of Einstein's quote: "Not everything that can be counted, counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." (or something like that)...Iain McGilchrist's work hints at this kind of development becoming the norm- the need to make explicit, measurable etc....and what a disaster that is for the things that really matter to us.

Re: In Defence of Blue Monday

Jonathanrowson — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 05:07:38 -0000

Thanks Ciaran. I agree that the bigger issue is the trivialisation of mental health, but I wonder if that is related to the media's uncritical veneration of science and scientists. Rather than engage with the complexities of personal experience, it is easier to write about a bogus formula backed by the honorific term 'science'....If we had a more mature relationship to science, we would probably have a more considerate and nunanced relationship to mental health too.

Re: People, Patterns and Problems

Harry — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 04:38:00 -0000

I think that the key is to focus down the size of the problem. Rather than saying "this process doesn't work" say "which bits of this process don't work?". Many problems appear too big to fix when in reality the broken bit is quite small and quite easily fixed by those who work the process every day.