Dual thinking for scientists

Scheffer, Marten; Bascompte, Jordi; Bjordam, Tone K.; Carpenter, Stephen R.; Clarke, Laurie B.; Folke, Carl; Marquet, Pablo A.; Mazzeo, Néstor; Meerhoff, Mariana; Sala, Osvaldo E.; Westley, Frances

doi:10.5751/es-07434-200203

Cited by 68 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 15 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Visioning plays a crucial role in building the future and when merged with critical thinking, it has the potential to connect with people's motives and aspirations, and be conducive to informed purposive action (Tilbury andWortman 2004, Wayman 2009). In this respect, the arts have a promising potential in the development of visions about the future while offering intuitive, experiential, and less inhibited ways to explore and represent systems dynamics and people's positions in these dynamics from different perspectives (Curtis 2009, Curtis et al 2012, Wiek and Iwaniec 2014, Scheffer et al 2015. Furthermore, the arts can help strengthen emotional bonds between places and people, which lie at the base of personal motives for caring and acting (Inwood 2008, Kagan 2008, Selman et al, 2010.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, the arts can help strengthen emotional bonds between places and people, which lie at the base of personal motives for caring and acting (Inwood 2008, Kagan 2008, Selman et al, 2010. Arts' appeal to open our senses to diverse ways of understanding the world beyond rationality is especially relevant when working in educational programs among young people, because of the capacity of the arts to foster different approaches to learning in highly explorative and motivating ways (McNaughton 2004, Flowers et al 2015, Scheffer et al 2015.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Performing biospheric futures with younger generations: a case in the MAB Reserve of La Sepultura, Mexico

Heras¹,

Tàbara²,

Meza³

2016

E&S

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ABSTRACT. Providing opportunities for younger generations to voice out their views in the building of our common futures within the limits, opportunities, and dynamics of the biosphere is a central component in sustainability learning. To this aim, a novel methodological approach using participatory theater was implemented to explore future scenarios with young people in the Man and Biosphere Reserve of La Sepultura, Mexico. Three workshops were carried out as part of a broader environmental education process, aimed at enhancing critical awareness and ownership of participants' own futures. Through the reflective enactment of scenarios linked to personal actions and resources, alternative ways to think through the interconnections and the affective bonds between participants and their natural heritage were collectively represented and explored. Our process helped not only to identify different plausible futures and potential barriers to them, but also to realize positive roles that young people could play to overcome such barriers and engage with their desired futures.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performing biospheric futures with younger generations: a case in the MAB Reserve of La Sepultura, Mexico

Heras¹,

Tàbara²,

Meza³

2016

E&S

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…There are good arguments for a thorough rethink of our educational system, with active training complementing metathinking about creativity throughout the curriculum (Costa and Kallick 2008). Creative thinking is the core business of scientists, and yet they rarely give it much thought (Scheffer 2014, Scheffer et al 2015. This is remarkably different in the arts, where nurturing the creative process is an integrated part of education.…”

Section: Finding a Partner In The Artsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Completely open-ended empty time can be productive, but many great minds shared the habit of creating seemingly empty time with the explicit goal to solve a problem (Scheffer et al 2015). Perhaps the best-known example is Darwin, who famously took walks along his especially constructed "thinking path" every day without exception.…”

Section: But Prime the Mindmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching originality? Common habits behind creative production in science and arts

Scheffer¹,

Baas²,

Bjordam³

2017

E&S

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ABSTRACT. Originality is a prerequisite for world-changing science and arts alike, but it cannot be taught. Or can it? Here, we show that a set of habits that are-surprisingly-shared among successful artists and scientists may catalyze creative output. We reveal three groups of such habits, each corresponding to a cluster of personality traits, shown to be shared by creative artists and scientists. The first habit group "embrace the unexpected" corresponds to the character trait "openness to new experiences" and encompasses tendencies to go ahead without a plan, collect diverse experiences, and take risks. The second group "create conditions for creation" links to the personality trait "autonomous" and encompasses simple habits such as making empty time and carrying a notebook. The third class of habits "break away from dogma" links to the shared personality trait "norm doubting" and stands for a strong drive to escape from established systems and also occasionally destroy part of one's own work to break tunnel vision and start anew. Although personality traits are hard to change, the habits we found hint at techniques or skills that may be taught.

show abstract

“…This can be read as an implicit critique of theoretical "as-if " solutions (Hiller 1996, Neal 2015, which resemble what Pedersen and Hendricks (2014) have called science bubbles. What the art world is emphasizing instead is a direct social interaction with stakeholders in mutual solution finding through bodily, sensory, and intuitive involvement (see also Scheffer et al 2015); the aesthetic and emotional dimensions of actors; and the intrinsic values of connection and cooperation (Neal 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainability science as if the world mattered: sketching an art contribution by comparison

Pröpper¹

2017

E&S

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ABSTRACT. Here, I investigate some of the potential contributions of art to the emerging field of sustainability science. First, the involvement of sustainability thinking in art is massively increasing. Second, there is a line of interactions between art and science that do not necessarily take sustainability as their content, at least in an ecological sense. Third, there are a considerable number of examples of sustainability science projects that are intended to link knowledge to social action without involving art. I exemplarily compare these different combinations to gain a concise overview of and differentiate between current activities and to identify some shortcomings and potentials of various contributions. The utilitarian and rather pragmatic question I ask is: What does art have to offer to sustainability science that the latter currently lacks? This question is asked from my own anthropological viewpoint, that of cultural and social science, partaking in sustainability science. I use empirical insights from sustainability projects in Africa that I took part in, which specifically dealt with sustainable land management. I blend these findings with results from a broad literature review and a comparison of multiple existing art projects. I show that a sustainability science that aims to matter to people and that takes its core tenet of linking the produced knowledge to sustainable social action seriously while facing an existing crisis of agency and knowledge would strongly benefit from opening to an experimental and experiential approach to knowledge production that explicitly includes processual, affective, and sensory types of knowledge, imaginative agency, and conceptual forms of interaction.

show abstract

Dual thinking for scientists

Cited by 68 publications

References 15 publications

Performing biospheric futures with younger generations: a case in the MAB Reserve of La Sepultura, Mexico

Performing biospheric futures with younger generations: a case in the MAB Reserve of La Sepultura, Mexico

Teaching originality? Common habits behind creative production in science and arts

Sustainability science as if the world mattered: sketching an art contribution by comparison

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About