The start of the New Year saw David Miliband give a speech on science diplomacy at the Royal Society as part of its 350th anniversary celebrations. At one of the largest scientific meetings of the year – the InterAcademy Panel – which brings science academies from around the world to discuss the major scientific challenges of the day; Miliband’s speech was further evidence of how chaos and complexity thinking is increasingly gaining influence although it is still very much early days. It is worth highlighting some significant parts of this speech as it is loaded with ideas that could have far reaching impact:

“First, international relations has long been premised on the idea of a ‘balance of power’. The international system tended towards equilibrium and self-correction, as states sought to balance each other’s economic or military strength; an echo of the world of Newtonian Mechanics. But today, a defining feature of our world is the tendency towards imbalance and asymmetry, mirroring the world of Quantum Mechanics. Think of the emergence of asymmetric tactics of terrorist organisations, leading not to a stable balance of opposing force, but chronic instability. Or of the damaging positive feedback loops that are driving runaway climate change and that built up unsustainable financial imbalances between emerging and existing powers.”

Another prominent theme of Miliband’s speech was the idea of science diplomacy:

“It is with these two disciplines – science and politics – that I want to end. Because the future of the planet depends above all on politics. But I also know that the lives of millions depend on developments in the physical and natural sciences. Politics and science need to come closer together – not for politics to smother science, but instead to be informed by its potential.”

“My closing thought is therefore this. The scientific world is becoming interdisciplinary. But the biggest inter-disciplinary leap we need is across the boundaries of politics and science. We need you. On resource conflicts, global inequality, nuclear security and counter terrorism, science is our ally. I hope this anniversary opens eyes not just to how far science has come, but what we can do together in the future.”

The speech provided some clever observations, after all Miliband is also known as ‘brains’ amongst his peers. However it seems the bridge between science and politics as conceived by Miliband is still short on vision and what is really needed to address the global challenges facing us today.

It is inevitable that science will have an increasing role in foreign policy as scientists collaborate on projects around the world but what is really needed is for politics and public policy to also experience a radical transformation. Scientific and technological solutions can only get us so far.

If the science is not matched by the politics then the science can only achieve so much. Indeed scientific and technological solutions will not realise their potential if the politics is conceived in ideological frameworks that are redundant in a globalised world, and especially when our understanding of human nature vastly increases, our idea of politics also needs to be re-examined.

2010, New Year, new start, new resolutions! There is a lot for me to catch up on since I last wrote on my blog from being selected to study at the L’Institut Rhône-Alpin des Systèmes Complexes (IXXI) and the Institut des Systèmes Complexes, Paris, attending the European Conference on Complex Systems at Warwick University and having a paper I co-wrote being accepted at a Philanthropic conference later this year. There is much to catch up on. However, I thought my first post for the start of the New Year and decade should draw upon an article that discusses how a growing number of scientists are ‘merging methods and results from different disciplines to extract new meaning from old data’, as this I believe will be an increasing feature of scientific research in the coming decade.

In an article published in the Journal, Evolution, the authors’ state that some of the ‘most important research of the last quarter-century has resulted from “synthetic science” – an approach which combines concepts, tools, and data from multiple disciplines to produce new insights or discoveries.’

However if we are to truly realise the potential of this kind of science then we need to work towards removing cultural barriers that perpetuate conventional thinking, and I very much look forward to that.

Springer has published a notable work on complex systems and science. The encyclopedia provides researchers with an overview of the field and will no doubt prove to be an invaluable point of reference. The encyclopedia covers areas such as agent-based modelling, chaos and complexity, systems biology, climate modelling and nonlinear systems.

What is of particular interest is the exploration of complexity science in tackling various problems from the biological basis of consciousness to microprocessor design to sustainability of life on earth; predictability, dynamics and extent of earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, and other natural disasters.

Complexity science is a young science and this is evident in the application of complex systems thinking in economic research. An interesting article in the McKinsey Quarterly discusses the power law phenomenon, and demonstrates how complexity thinking is growing in influence through the public and private sectors. One of the most interesting aspects will be how complex systems thinking will reshape traditional economic theory. The short essay points to the parallels between man-made disasters and natural disasters, and how this is “bringing new ideas to economic forecasting, strategic planning, and risk management,” something which would be of particular use in the study of climate change and its impact upon the whole ethos of national security.

CNAS, the Centre for a New American Security recently published the findings of a report in which they conducted a war game exercise to explore the national security implications of global climate change, and was also recently featured in a documentary.

This is given further resonance as Nouriel Roubini economist cause celebre gave a talk at the Perimeter Institute on the economic crisis and the implications for the field of economic science. Nouriel is known for having predicted the economic crisis and inevitably states that this was not a ‘Black Swan Event’ but rather a ‘White Swan Event’:

There were a small but significant number of economists, thinkers and analysts who – early on – predicted many of the risks and vulnerabilities that eventually led to this crisis. In many ways I simply connected the dot in these different strands of thinking and warnings.

The challenge that faces us is not only our ability to predict crises but create systems that are stable, and this is where hard science will increasingly begin to influence economic theory.

On Wednesday I attended a conference organised by the Government of Science Future Analysts Network. It was interesting to see how much complexity thinking has started to influence thinking in public policy. A central theme through the conference was the idea of the rational Newtonian world vs. the chaotic emergent world and the schisms between these two worldviews. It offered an opportunity to explore theories and methodologies that are applied in current futures research, and raised interesting questions in my mind about designing modelling methodologies that incorporate different disciplines particularly as collaborative working will be an increasing feature in public policy. However there is still some way to go in challenging thinking that currently dominates public policy and it will no doubt take sometime for radical new thinking to take its place at the heart of the decision making process.

The idea of developing modelling methodologies that brings techniques from different disciplines together is of particular interest to me. How do you fuse together a model developed by a neuroscientist to understand the impact of emotional stress on cognitive function with a macroeconomic model constructed by an economist to formulate economic policy in times of upheaval? This is an area I believe could greatly impact upon the advancement of the scientific method, something which Kevin Kelly discussed in his lecture: ‘The Next 100 Years of Science: Long-term Trends in the Scientific Method.’

It raises questions in my mind of how and whether this type of multidisciplinary work will contribute to the evolution of the scientific method and our ability to test ideas in the social sciences that have up until now been beyond the realm of experimentation.

I walked away from this conference feeling more positive about the future and pleased that complexity thinking is slowly beginning to influence the civil service and government agencies.

This is an interesting question – would it be better to allow a first wave of swine flu infection spread in order to build immunity to a more deadly strain should the virus mutate?

The question is prompted by groundbreaking research published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases on the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. The research suggests that it may be better to allow a first wave of swine flu infection in order to prevent deaths on a mass scale especially if the swine flu virus mutates in a similar process to the flu pandemic of 1918.

The research found that people who were initially infected by a mild form of the Spanish flu virus were better inoculated against the deadly strain that soon emerged to kill 40 million people worldwide. The death rate amongst this group was approximately 70 per cent lower. The report stated that:

Exposure to influenza in the spring and summer of 1918 provided mortality and morbidity protection during the fall pandemic wave. The intensity of the first wave may have differed across US cities and countries and may partly explain geographical variation in pandemic mortality rates in the fall. Pandemic preparedness plans should consider that immune protection could be naturally acquired during a first wave of mild influenza illnesses.

Lone Simonsen an epidemiologist at Georgetown Washington University and one of the co-author’s of the study said, “In 1918, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, it would have been better to allow a first wave of infection in order to build immunity to the merging virus while it was still mild.” However it remains to be seen whether swine flu will behave in the same way as Spanish flu.

The research comes at a time when new thinking is required to meet the challenges of diseases in the 21st Century. In an article by Larry Brilliant an epidemiologist and Chairman of the National Bio-surveillance Advisory Subcommittee, he says, “And there is worse news: The 2009 swine flu will not be the last and may not be the worst pandemic that we will face in the coming years. Indeed, we might be entering an Age of Pandemics. In our lifetimes, or our children’s lifetimes, we will face a broad array of dangerous emerging 21st-century diseases, man-made or natural, brand-new or old, newly resistant to our current vaccines and antiviral drugs. You can bet on it.”

Some of the intricate interrelationships between environmental degradation and the increased contact between humans and animals, population growth, climate change, economic and social problems all demand an integrated approach to meet the challenges of disease in the new century.

As Larry Brilliant says, “Reducing the number of terrible forms of suffering is what we all want, but I fear that if we don’t take seriously the factors that could make the next decade the Age of Pandemics, we will start moving backward, adding lethal diseases…” This is where projects like the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative illuminate the intellectual shifts needed to shape this century.

The prospect of a worldwide flu pandemic will challenge outmoded conventions in health and science policy if the threat is realised just as the global economic crisis has unearthed the seeds for chaos that were inherently built into the capitalist economic system culminating in a tipping point that will affect us for generations.

The science community has long anticipated the potential inevitability of another worldwide flu pandemic and cutting-edge work has already been done to study the spread of infectious diseases in the context of complex systems science. However thinking still remains rather conservative and according to my philosophical transactions with an extremely bright scientist this is largely due to the innumeracy of the medical establishment and their continued domination of public health. It remains to be seen just how much this crisis will increase the influence of complex systems thinking, but what it will no doubt demonstrate is the danger of not taking a systems approach to solving complex crises.

The global economic crisis has already demonstrated how governments failed to understand the problem, and how they were too slow in understanding just how interconnected the problem actually was. A failure to understand a system in its overall architecture and the interaction of its components will exacerbate any crisis, as demonstrated in the current economic crisis.

In this emerging health crisis it is critical that we understand swine flu as part of a large interconnected network so that we adopt the right measures to avert a humanitarian crisis and in the event exacerbate the economic crisis that would create a devastating feedback loop.

This is an opportunity for disciplines to share techniques and insights that can enlighten our approach in tackling this crisis whether one is coming from the field of biology, chemistry, epidemiology, economics or political science all can make a significant contribution to elevate our thinking in solving this crisis.

One of the most interesting applications of agent-based modelling over the last few years is in biomedical research. Diseases that exhibit complex and non-linear behaviour require models that capture such elaborate complexity, and it is the fusion of agent based modelling with dynamic knowledge representation that is of particular interest in the process of scientific discovery. It can be said that dynamic knowledge representation provides the detail and ABM provides the means for that knowledge to interact in a simulated environment.

Gary An at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine is developing multi-scale computational models of biological systems, and is presenting a seminar today at the University of Michigan’s Centre for the Study of Complex Systems on ‘Dynamic Knowledge Representation with Agent-based Modelling: Establishing a basis for an Evolutionary Paradigm for Biomedical Research’.

This research promises much, its vision inspired and as has been stated, ‘perhaps the greatest challenge facing the biomedical research community is the effective translation of basic mechanistic knowledge into the clinical arena.’ Consequently the need for multidisciplinary research is thrust upon us.

As we celebrate the birth of Darwin and the publication of his book On the Origin of Species we should also celebrate his influence on the emerging and growing field of complex systems and science. The idea of evolution by natural selection inherently epitomises the principles of complexity science, it gives us a model to understand how systems evolve and adapt. Indeed it is these Darwinian principles that enable us to dissect the complexity of systems in every field so that we can begin to understand how they work.

It is the application of evolutionary theory to the social sciences in the 21st century and the merging of the natural and social sciences that presents us with new and exciting possibilities – to inspire and further enrich our understanding of life – to help us find solutions to the greatest challenges facing us today. Darwin’s revolution is unfinished. We are asking ourselves new and greater questions, and cutting across boundaries. Science is becoming more interdisciplinary and evolving in new directions – indeed it has to if we are to survive.

Physicists applying their tools to how humanity can get along is a vision that a growing minority aspire to, a minority, not exclusive to physics who in years to come could be remembered for creating a new politics. This discussion between Physicist Albert-László Barabási and political scientist James Fowler provides an insight into the paradigmatic revolution in the hard and social sciences that is growing in influence. The question perhaps is not whether this will reshape political philosophy but when will it reshape politics and to what extent.

Much has been written about the power of social media and networks, but for those of us interested in complex systems, it has proven to provide some tremendous surprises especially in the physics community who are struck by how different systems ranging from genetics to social networks share similar organising principles. I was also struck by the following quote and wonder how much of the new generation of scientists are actually thinking in this way?

“Suddenly a new generation of physicists, biologists, mathematicians, bioinformaticians, systems biologists – whatever you want to call them – comes along and says, ‘You know, I don’t have a favourite gene. I want to look at all of them simultaneously.’ That is a fundamental change in the view of what really matters in biology, one that not everybody is ready for. It’s creating stress.”

Indeed it is a matter that will no doubt increasingly influence political and scientific debate this century. I imagine that the field of complex systems and science will create the next tectonic shift in intellectual thought, and even the next intellectual giant in science – standing on the shoulders of great scientists who traversed this arduous path to greatness and the advancement of humankind.