Back in 2013 colleagues and I published a paper in the journal Futures which posited a ‘social maturation’ framework. The framework posits a sequential process (of six phases) through which an issue passes and a range of indicators for each phase. This analytical framework is a kind-of linear model in which the early phases are … [Read more…]
This is both a distressing time and an incredibly interesting time to do social research and inquiry. For example, scholars of moral psychology and human groupish-ness can examine new cases such as the splitting of people in different tribes in relation to the pandemic: e.g. folk enthusiastically embracing stay at home orders (e.g. those telling … [Read more…]
This post will be fairly brief because I just want to note a couple of things that are presently of interest to me which I might wish to further explore at a later date: First, the pandemic – or, rather, behaviour during it – has reminded me of a distinction I started thinking about during … [Read more…]
A brief framing note: in the current emotionally charged context it’s probably wise to first articulate some framing thoughts and try to avoid potential misinterpretations. It’s clear that SARS-CoV-2 and the disease it causes are significant threats. It would be a grave error and immoral to ignore its effects on the health and lives of … [Read more…]
Like many people I’m pondering the intensifying COVID-19 infectious disease crisis, with daily life here in Australia (I live in Melbourne) beginning to transform as governments implement policies which upend daily life and many industries. Initial forecasts suggest we’re likely to see the worst level of unemployment since the Great Depression. I have no idea … [Read more…]
A couple of years ago a couple of cognitive scientists – Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber – published a provocative book called The Enigma of Reason which seeks to both engage with puzzles regarding human reason and theorise the cognitive mechanism(s) involved. In my PhD thesis I suggested that their findings regarding human reason are … [Read more…]
I’m currently reading Belief: What It Means to Believe and Why Our Convictions Are So Compelling by James E. Alcock and I noted with interest that some key chapters address knowledge practices and/or issues and factors relevant to them: Chapter 2 notes the ways cognitive ‘schemas’ often automatically fill in the gaps when responding to … [Read more…]
I recently spotted an interesting piece on the use of ‘extreme scenarios’ in climate policy research and debates. If you ignore the inflammatory click-bait title regarding “climate porn” and focus on the substance of the piece it makes some interesting observations regarding the apparent institutionalisation of particular ways of constructing scenarios that are relevant to the … [Read more…]
Reading Roger Pielke Jr’s review of David Wallace-Wells’ new book The Uninhabitable Earth: A Story of the Future got me thinking about a process described by Pielke Jr as the transformation of “carefully caveated scenarios of the future” produced by scientific communities into “most likely futures” (or related future-oriented claims). He writes: The scientific community … [Read more…]
Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) – subtitled Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts – is a social psychology book centred on self-justification and cognitive dissonance. The book also implicitly emphasises a particular philosophy of science which is linked to human psychology – it’s this aspect which got my attention. … [Read more…]