Thinking about Thinking, Creativity, Innovation and Design
"Winning slowly is the same thing as losing" Alex Steffen In the previous blog post, we focused on Part 4 of The Climate Book created by Greta Thunberg. Now we are turning our attention to the fifth and last part of the book "What We Must Do Now". In the introduction to the part, Greta …
Greta Thunberg has with the help of over a hundred experts created a book filled with ideas and research about the changes in our climate. The Climate Book looks at the changes from a wide range of perspectives and it is a valuable resource if you are looking for a summary of the problems. The …
Continue reading "The Climate Book Created By Greta Thunberg"
Almost everything we make ends up in a landfill or the ocean or the atmosphere. This approach is in contrast to how nature does things and this is at least part of the reason why our climate is changing.
What if humans are becoming enroboted?
Conservationists are increasingly using AI - artificial intelligence to help protect species and tackle climate change. Technologies such as camera traps and satellite images to audio recordings can help us learn how to identify which photos out of thousands contain rare species. By using AI the manual labour that is required to collect conservation data …
Continue reading "Machine Learning – Thinking Tasks Nature & Humans"
"Biased? No, I am not!" An implicit bias is a bias that you are not aware of. A person who has an implicit bias may believe they treat everyone equally but their implicit biases may cause negative or positive associations that influence their behaviours. Research has shown that biases can result in differential treatment of …
"What if Machine Learning could help to eradicate racial inequality in medicine?" In a previous blog post, we explored problems with machine learning. We will continue to look at the use of algorithms and some problems that urgently need new approaches. Analysis of algorithms widely used in US hospitals found that there has been systematic …
Discriminatory and filled with institutional bias! The Dutch childcare benefit scandal has highlighted the need for ideas about how to deal with the use of algorithms. We have chosen Machine Learning (ML) as an interesting Problem Solving Topic for 2022, go here to read more. Algorithmic decision-making systems are increasingly used to identify and detect …
We know our readers love our alternative approach to making an end-of-the-year list of books. Instead of following the mainstream media and selecting books that have topped the sales lists during the year, we invite our readers to make a list of their own about Interesting Reading Areas (IRA). The idea is to look for areas …
A couple of years ago, inspired by the book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari we challenged ourselves to explore some of the lessons. Go here to read more about the challenges. Yuval Noah Harari's first book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind has been turned into a graphic novel series. …
FPSI - Future Problem Solving Program International - is an international program that was developed in 1975 by the American psychologist Ellis Paul Torrance. The mission is: "To develop the ability of young people globally to design and achieve positive futures through problem solving using critical and creative thinking." Students are asked to find creative …
In 1989, one-hundred and ninety sevens countries agreed to ban the gases that destroyed the ozone layer. Climate change is a huge challenge and it is easy to get disillusioned. Yet, we can learn from success stories and by starting a discussion on a positive note, the chances of positive outcomes are higher. We, humans, …
What can we learn from the way we handled the problems with the ozone layers? The video below explores why humans are so bad at thinking about climate change. A problem is that CO2 is invisible and various ways to make for example the energy use visible. Ways to use behavioural nudges and competitions to …
Continue reading "Distant in Time and Space – Climate Change"
Would you spend your holiday exploring peatlands? Names like bogs, peatland, fens, and marshes are waterlogged landscapes that have been ignored for years. Ignored and dug up and drained. Parts of peatlands have been planted with Christmas trees in attempts to not only earn money but also to make the place more beautiful. Images of …
Where is the climate changing? If you put the words climate change into your search box and look at the images. We suspect that often you get images of polar bears standing on a small iceberg surrounded by open water, images of dry soil with cracks and crusts, and dramatic images of hurricanes, storms, bleached …
Continue reading "How images of Climate Change influence our perceptions"
Science rarely looks to non-scientists for ideas and solutions. But on this occasion, the nuns have helped scientists to understand more about the achoques and how to breed them. The nuns gained lots of their understanding from the indigenous people who know where to find the salamanders.
Looking at nature for solutions and inspiration is a wonderful step towards solving these problems. Nature uses ingenious ways to solve many of the problems that we are facing.
We make complex things, Nature makes them work.
It is easy to use a similar type of thinking that lead to the problems with climate change. Economic benefits such as subsidiaries are tempting to use but we need to ensure that the risks involved with any solution are carefully explored. Sustainably managed forests to combat cllimate change is not as simple as it might first sound.
The use of biotechnology raises several ethical questions. Biotechnology, involving living systems to make products, or technological application that uses biological systems to make or modify products for specific use, has been used by humans for thousands of years, yet, the gengre has during the last century and the beginning of this century been expanded …
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