Wednesday, July 12, 2006
On the other side of the paradigm
I have been hatching a strategy based on a ‘conversion’ model used in the marketing industry to promote new concept products. I’d be interested in your opinion about its validity in the soil science community.
First, I agree with you we need a corpus of proofs and case studies. They won’t bring the wall down on their own, but they can provide us with a battering ram. I am reading Thomas Kuhn’s book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and the self-perpetuating nature of scientific paradigms, especially their political process whereby a new way of perceiving and thinking about ‘reality’ gains popularity with the scientists on the flanks of the establishment and finally gets critical mass after reaching the Tipping Point.
Proofs are essential but on their own are not enough because a paradigm is like a set of rose coloured glasses. Phenomena seen through these paradigmic glasses can change from fact to fantasm, depending on which set of glasses are worn. You either ‘get it’ or you don’t.
Using the Bell Curve of Diffusion of Innovation as a guide, we need to identify the 2.5% of soil scientists who ‘get it’ (The Innovators, open-minded and flexible, they aggressively seek out the ‘new’) and network them and multiply their influence to recruit the 13%-15% who would be willing to entertain a new paradigm (The Early Adopters, they hate being left behind). One the Early Adopters are on board, the walls of the establishment become fragile. Success is not assured. Careers and empires have been built on the dominant paradigm. Personal prestige, the most potent investment a professional can have in the status quo, makes people fight passionately to defeat the invading idea. It becomes ideological. Sackett’s attack on David Marsh was a flash point on the paradigm battlefront.
If the idea has legs it will get up.
The second concept we must deal with is the phenomenon of observer as active ingredient in the scientific experiment. Now black letter law scientists dispute this because they think it undermines their credibility, but quantum physics brought with it a set of very defensible propositions that say the scientist can determine or influence the outcome in a wide range of unavoidable ways, from establishing the assumptions on which the hypothesis is built to their physical and mental presence.
I believe a scientist who believes XYZ to be the case will find that indeed it is. This situation is part of the human condition and the only difference between scientists is their degree of self-awareness.
This may sound like humus to you, but the principle I draw from it is that it’s not enough to prove the earth revolves around the Sun, as Copernicus discovered. Listeners have got to have the “ears to hear”. (Christ) Hence the conversion model which holds that some are rusted on to one set of beliefs and unavailable to us (Unavailables), some are loosely aligned with the status quo and are available (Availables), and some will cling to our position as soon as they discover it because they were searching for something like it. (Searchers)
The trick then is to identify who’s who in the zoo. Find the Searchers (Innovators on our bell curve), link them, network them, give them a voice, and amplify it through involvement in activities and through communications media and events. By this means attract as many Availables as we can. This process takes place over time. It can be rapid or slow, depending on how well we identify and categorise players.
I have started the process with “An Open Letter To Soil Scientists” to let the community know that it is the fulcrum point in this issue – they are critical to the outcome and have an opportunity (I believe) to play a role on behalf of society.... Or at least to think about it. They’re not going to get rich doing it, none of us is, but we will be richly rewarded in psychic coin. And who knows what awaits us on the other side of the paradigm?
“Amplifying activities” for Searchers and Converting Availables to get involved in could include:
• helping to gather, consolidate and interpret studies that support the new paradigm
• assisting with fielding technical questions from non-scientists joining the movement
• assisting with lobbying presentations to senior decision makers
• assisting to develop or select the most appropriate measurement methodology (I need help here big time)
• speaking at for a
• contributing papers
• advising of links and studies
• advising the movement’s spokespeople
• helping spread the word among scientists
The harvest is plentiful, but many hands to make light work.
"Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, we shall come rejoicing...."
First, I agree with you we need a corpus of proofs and case studies. They won’t bring the wall down on their own, but they can provide us with a battering ram. I am reading Thomas Kuhn’s book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and the self-perpetuating nature of scientific paradigms, especially their political process whereby a new way of perceiving and thinking about ‘reality’ gains popularity with the scientists on the flanks of the establishment and finally gets critical mass after reaching the Tipping Point.
Proofs are essential but on their own are not enough because a paradigm is like a set of rose coloured glasses. Phenomena seen through these paradigmic glasses can change from fact to fantasm, depending on which set of glasses are worn. You either ‘get it’ or you don’t.
Using the Bell Curve of Diffusion of Innovation as a guide, we need to identify the 2.5% of soil scientists who ‘get it’ (The Innovators, open-minded and flexible, they aggressively seek out the ‘new’) and network them and multiply their influence to recruit the 13%-15% who would be willing to entertain a new paradigm (The Early Adopters, they hate being left behind). One the Early Adopters are on board, the walls of the establishment become fragile. Success is not assured. Careers and empires have been built on the dominant paradigm. Personal prestige, the most potent investment a professional can have in the status quo, makes people fight passionately to defeat the invading idea. It becomes ideological. Sackett’s attack on David Marsh was a flash point on the paradigm battlefront.
If the idea has legs it will get up.
The second concept we must deal with is the phenomenon of observer as active ingredient in the scientific experiment. Now black letter law scientists dispute this because they think it undermines their credibility, but quantum physics brought with it a set of very defensible propositions that say the scientist can determine or influence the outcome in a wide range of unavoidable ways, from establishing the assumptions on which the hypothesis is built to their physical and mental presence.
I believe a scientist who believes XYZ to be the case will find that indeed it is. This situation is part of the human condition and the only difference between scientists is their degree of self-awareness.
This may sound like humus to you, but the principle I draw from it is that it’s not enough to prove the earth revolves around the Sun, as Copernicus discovered. Listeners have got to have the “ears to hear”. (Christ) Hence the conversion model which holds that some are rusted on to one set of beliefs and unavailable to us (Unavailables), some are loosely aligned with the status quo and are available (Availables), and some will cling to our position as soon as they discover it because they were searching for something like it. (Searchers)
The trick then is to identify who’s who in the zoo. Find the Searchers (Innovators on our bell curve), link them, network them, give them a voice, and amplify it through involvement in activities and through communications media and events. By this means attract as many Availables as we can. This process takes place over time. It can be rapid or slow, depending on how well we identify and categorise players.
I have started the process with “An Open Letter To Soil Scientists” to let the community know that it is the fulcrum point in this issue – they are critical to the outcome and have an opportunity (I believe) to play a role on behalf of society.... Or at least to think about it. They’re not going to get rich doing it, none of us is, but we will be richly rewarded in psychic coin. And who knows what awaits us on the other side of the paradigm?
“Amplifying activities” for Searchers and Converting Availables to get involved in could include:
• helping to gather, consolidate and interpret studies that support the new paradigm
• assisting with fielding technical questions from non-scientists joining the movement
• assisting with lobbying presentations to senior decision makers
• assisting to develop or select the most appropriate measurement methodology (I need help here big time)
• speaking at for a
• contributing papers
• advising of links and studies
• advising the movement’s spokespeople
• helping spread the word among scientists
The harvest is plentiful, but many hands to make light work.
"Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, we shall come rejoicing...."
