Science based science based education (and work)

Recently my exposure to studies about how education, work, ideas, and a successful life seems to work studied by serious and recognized researchers, seems to me to collide head on with the basic university concept many in that field are currently dwelling in.

Most higher educations got it written down in their vision somewhere that the education should be "science based". For those not in this kind of environment that means teaching should continuously be up to date and backed up by relevant research. Scientists are also encouraged to be "inter-disciplinary" to "network" (especially to the industrial sector) and be goal orientated. Especially the last has become thé driver for what you are worth as a scientist or teacher and in many universities and release a bag of money every time a benchmark is met or a student graduate. Teachers have to measure and weigh every step the student takes to satisfy somebody in the administration.

But we are supposed to be guided by culminated scientific efforts to continuously excel our academic sanctuaries, right?

So, how come studies by people like Sugata Mitra can show education without teachers can work very well. That groups can be liquid and that less computers (sharing) increases learning?
I tested Prof. Mitras ideas in 3 groups of 4th year veterinary students last year. After a series of practical lectures on parasitology I told them "You got 1 hour to solve the problem: what is the 20% that causes 80% of parasitic problems in modern livestock farming? You can use any means of help, ask anybody, look anywhere, but you must work in groups. You can however change groups as you like." Most students acted like they were on a treasure hunt and were moving around on the campus a lot. And the discussions we had afterwards were amazing!

Daniel Pink gave me another blow to what I thought was acknowledged throughout the academic system: the classic carrot on a stick. Apparently if you actually study the science performed the last few decades the connection between incentive and cognitive skills shows the carrot on a stick basically makes you "dummer". The motivation for original ideas and performing them faster do not come from getting a reward!

Where do the good ideas come from? According to Steven Berlin Johnson good ideas come from groups with different backgrounds letting ideas have sex. Again - liquid networks. In his studies he credit the enlightenment to first coffee houses around 1650 where people could replace the dulling traditional beer-drinking with mental stimuli like coffee and tea in a mixed community of backgrounds. In short: the coffee table! Inter-disciplinary projects sprung from those tables.
If you ever been to a conference or a symposium, you probably know the real brainstorming is done in the breaks between presentations juggling you cup and papers. In my work place our best chance of a cup of coffee with colleagues is a small (newly renovated) room without windows, currently filled with plant seeds from some research group. My kids kinder garden have a more successful coffee club (no pun)! Where we are now basically everybody is isolated to their own room with their own ideas, and coffee.

And where do we normally get our own good ideas to share with others? At our work? No - everywhere but there apparently. According to Jason Fried we work much more intensively when not at work - mainly because we are not constantly disturbed by more or (frequently) less important interruptions that is to fill a work day. One of the great traps of the traditional work place is not how well or efficiently you can use your skills, but whether you fill a certain gap in time with your presence. But to be frank - does it really matter how much or when you work if what you do is really good?

Because, what makes us happy? According to Nic Marks groups research on what increasing well-being and happiness list the top 5 things: connecting (social relationships), being active (use body), taking time to take notice (be aware), keep learning (be curios), and to give (generosity).
Oddly enough it seems to support the other things written above. And it gets really curious when adding National Geographic writer Dan Buettners groups studies on what gives a long life: eat wisely (only 80% full, lots of plant), move (nudge yourself into physical activeness, less conveniences), have the right outlook (slow down, ikigai - find a sense of purpose), connect (family first, right tribe - don't surround yourself with negative people).

Many of the things that makes us happy and live long seems to overlap - and also move into what seems to work (tested) also in a work place like an university.

It makes you wonder if we couldn't do it better doesn't it?
 

Further reading

Political Blocks - Big Boss Says No!

The Danish newspaper Politikken wrote today on their website about how the Danish gas compagny DONG attempts to hinder plans of green energy in local areas. Decades ago the Danish goverment invested billions (DKR) in establishing a national gas network (DONG), and planned whole regions to be gas dependant to make it rentable. This now clash with the current reality and initiatives of Danish counties that wish to build houses with greener energies such as sun and biomass fuel. These initiatives have lately grown forward to meet the goals of reducing CO2 and protecting the environment, also specified by the goverment. It is another dillemma, or Catch-22, of a goverments long term planning including law regulation that now disharmonize with new regulations of reducing the use of energy and the effects on the environment.

I post this example because it is a good example of how strongly govermental planning, both short term and long term, blocks what I like to think of as more stable development and generally innovative thinking. One could think of the goverments compagny, DONG, thinking as backward thinking.
As an example we already know that we use enormous amounts of energy building and maintaining houses (it is a good sales pitch for selling more products), but law often hinders the possibility of developing and using alternatives. Examples of these are isolation - where a there are minimum demands for new houses, but there are also strong regulation on using only existing materials. Using collected water for flushing toilets are regulated by demands as well in Denmark. And in Estonia using a circulating system to the ground water beneath the house as a heating is rejected in about 90% of the cases because of theoretical possebility of damaging the ground water. But the same system is very common in Swedish houses. Naturally these regulations and laws are often to protect from damage or harm, but a general manipulation with what is possible have side effects that stops more intelligent alternatives. And as long as money is involved the process of altering the laws is slow - just look at how fast the alternative to the car is regulated.

So, depending on the contry, the political law regulations seems to work as breaks on on innovative development initiatives in general. Laws could work the opposite way, but unfortunatly they are normally designed to be protective rather than progressive.

Financial Blocks - The best inventions are free!

If a combination of brilliant inventors and wealth occurred in history it is rarely the case modern times. If there ever were a time where currency is crucial for an invention to rise through the cement floors of documentation, risk assessments, patents, marketing, laws, and safety reports (that all exist for our benefits we might argue), it is the present time. But time could be at a changing point, circling around the dominating investors dictating what inventions are needed!

Many idealistic inventors have had the idea of free applications of discoveries should benefit humanity. Nikola Teslas (1856-1943) dream of free energy is just one of these. He believed so intensively in this idea that he tore up the patent contract that entitled him to royalties on the all the electricity we now take for granted, possibly making him the richest man on earth.
So far the wall every inventor meets is raising enough finances to do research, build and improve. Competition is tough, and money is often earmarked in narrow fields (designed on demand by industry, universities and politicians) like the EU framework program. It may be tough for a totally original idea to be considered in such a context. So what to do when there are no money from the investors?

The current revolution of the IT-era could open a possibility: free innovation. Or perhaps innovation paid directly by the users rather than investors.
Look at the approach of Wikibooks in helping to solve the knot of how to educate people in developing countries. One plan is to write 1000 books of education by qualified people though Wikipedias online tools, and make them available for free. The project is driven, on a book level, by sponsors who wish to be associated with the developing markets. With one new approach, greedy bureaucrats, international politics, and outdated books, are elegantly chess mated.

Independent programmers increasingly release programs, many of them open source, for free use on the internet, and live off voluntary donations. The debated peer to peer internet technology, BitTorrent (by Bram Cohen) is just one example. A technology that is just at its beginning of its applications, and has lead to inventions such as free telecommunication (Skype). Voluntary donations have already spread into many internet based projects from pop culture (comic books, independent music artists) to humanitarian movements (The Hunger Site).

Individuals donating finances to projects rather than big interest based money tanks is probably a trend born from our ego centered culture and the new web technologies, but a powerful trend none the less. It would loosen some of the organized control and allow more chaos and creativity – evolution, in short. Firms also seem to have discovered that paying for exposure (commercials) is a way to finance projects on the internet (eg. The Hunger Site). If the trend develops over the years one can hope that at least some of the international resources could be redirected to help home inventors and great ideas on their feet. Perhaps free for everyone.

General introduction - Catch-22 of Innovation

When I entered the natural sciences I could not get the thought out of my head: How many amazing, perhaps revolutionary, inventions continuously are lost due to habits and rules of society, and why?

To give a little introduction, I would like to give an example of such an invention.

When I was 19 years old a local Danish TV program showed a short documentary on Erik Skaarups wave energy converter, he named “Bølgehøvlen” (now named WavePlane). The program planted the first seed of doubt in me whether truly innovative achievements are getting a place in our time.
Erik Skaarup explanation how he as a home inventor came up with the idea of harvesting wave energy in his bathtub made me smile, but it was the opposition his idea met at the most obvious investors (like the Danish government) that dazzled me! The depressing story of how he went from door to door of the investors was long, even with self financed test proofs of pilot models. The potential investor I remember the best was the Danish Ministry of the Environment who argued they did not find it necessary to invest in wave technology since they had wind power technology well developed. A paradoxal statement considering Danish politic has preached green energy and innovative solutions as part of up-keeping the national welfare and work places for decades. The story have not changed over the last 13 years from what I can read from the company website (www.WavePlane.com) who now has most investors in Norway and bases in Australia, Japan and USA. Time will tell if Danish investors made fools of themselves.

Now I have found that hundreds of incredible inventions and inventors, through news but also first hand, who never get to change the world for the better. And why? Is it the patent laws? Eccentric behavior? Lack of scientific proof? Lack of economic understanding from the inventor? Lack of understanding of the impact of the invention of the investor? Or is it because we, as civilization, just can not handle more than one revolution at a time (currently being the IT era)? I think it is all of the above. And in this blog I will try to give examples of these points of view.

To make myself understand this paradox, I created two groups of inventors: the Alchemist and the Scientist. I may be a son to a father of the first category, but am officially working as (and by the rules of) the latter. An Alchemist is a term I use in lack of better because it best fits the personal approach of discovery (home inventors, but more) in lack of better, not to mix up with the medieval magician. It is my opinion that these two groups approach inventions from opposite angles. The Scientist has to skeptically build all his discoveries on theories already established. Theories that are our best bet at describing reality, but far from do so.
An Alchemist plays around, discovers something works, believes in the invention, but then meets the modern age demand of nearly anal demands for documentation. Often this creates a catch-22, that few normal people have time or temper to satisfy. The result is that the invention dies with the owner, in the patent office or in the drawer.

If innovation and miracles are what we need to solve the 21st Century’s challenges, maybe we need to reevaluate our approach to discovery and the space we allow true originality. Welcome to my blog!