Forms of Presentation and the Future of Comprehension

References

Author:
Anthony Judge
Year:
1978

1. Union of International Associations. Yearbook of World Problems and Human Potential. Brussels, Union of International Associations and Mankind 2000, 1976, 1136 pages (The author has been concerned with various aspects of this problem as director of a project which produced the (which discusses a number of points with extensive bibliographies)

2. The author has explored the background to these criteria in the publication cited in (1), and also:

  • Criteria for an adequate meta-model. (Paper presented to a session of the 4th Conference on General Systems Education, Connecticut, 1971) 4 p.
  • Relationships between elements of knowledge. (Working paper for the Committee on Conceptual and Terminological Analysis) 1971, 150 p.
  • Knowledge-representation in a computer-supported environment. International Classification, 4, 1977, 2, pp. 76-81
  • Computer-aided visualization of psycho-social structures (Paper presented to a symposium of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, Philadelphia, 1971)

3. In the Final Report of the Unesco Consultation on Science and Technology Policies in the Caribbean Region, Georgetown, 1977 (UNESCO/NS/ROU/408, para 82), the: "Unesco representative stated that he had taken note of the CSC Secretariat's interest in entering this field. He mentioned that within the context of preparations for the Conference of Ministers of African Member States responsible for the Application of Science and Technology to Development (CASTAFRICA), convened by Unesco in Dakar on 21-30 January 1974, a vast operation of this sort had been carried out by Unesco, according to a methodology which had been provided well ahead of time to all CASTAFRICA national liaison officers. The "mapping" -- a term which he judged might be understood -- had in that instance been the putting together and confrontation of national replies from national science and technology policy bodies, as to areas of convergence and mutual wishes of cooperation." The results of this exercise are published by Unesco as: Science and Technology in African Development (Paris, Unesco, 1974). The methodology used identifies from survey replies specific fields in which different groups of countries wish to collaborate. The information is presented in the form of lists.

4. Georges Anderla. Information in 1965; a forecasting study of information needs and resources. Paris OECD, 1973.

5. Robert Jackson. Capacity Study of the United Nations Development System. United Nations, 1969 (prefaced with the phrase: "Few Ministers will have time to read this Report...", p. VIII).

6. This would imply a considerable waste of resources in the production of studies in this domain.

7. These problems have been reviewed by the author in:

Anthony Judge. International Organizations and the Generation of the Will to Change; information systems required. Brussels, Union of International Associations, 1970

Anthony Judge. Acquisition and organization of international documentation. (Introductory report to an International symposium on documentation of the United Nations and other intergovernmental organizations. Geneva, UNITAR, 1972)

8. See previous paragraph (note 7). In the proposed International Standard Nomenclature of Fields of Science and Technology [UNESCO/NS/RDU/257 rev 1). reproduced in Unesco's Method for priority determination in science and technology [Paris, Unesco, 19763 and in the CASTAFRICA study [see note 3), no indication is given of what fields have been omitted, whether the list is complete, or what relationship it bears to the Unesco thesauri (see note 7).

9. Consider the relationship between the OECD Macrothesaurus and the categories of the UNEP Information Referral System.

10. With respect to the World Science Information System "the position of the ICSU/Unesco Central Committee was that UNISIST should devote its primary effort to the basic sciences...and at the same time be sympathetic to a progressive inclusion of the applied and engineering sciences - and eventually the social sciences - on an equal footing with the former" [UNISIST Report, pp. 135-6). But the Unesco Statistical Yearbook (1976) includes as "fields of science" the "social sciences" and "humanities" [p. 6093). The SPINES Thesaurus does not mention the social sciences.

11. "...science is many-sided, and eech tends to regard it from the standpoint of his own particular experience and interests." Scientific Thought, Paris, Unesco, 1972, p. V.

12. See: La Science et la Divarslte des C ultures. Paris, Unesco, 1974.

13. The Development of development Thinking. Paris, OECD, 1377 (Liaison Bulletin, No. 1).

The Unesco Interconcept Advisory Committee is using "development" in a pilot project to investigate the multiplicity of definitions in the social sciences.

Johannes A. Heising. Entwicklung: was ist das? Analysen und Prognosen, 55, Januar 1978, Dp. 27-30

Szymon Chodek. Societal Development; five approaches with conclusion from comparative analysis. Oxford University Press, 1973.

14. In preparing the section on 1600 "Intellectual Disciplines and Sciences" of the Yearbook of World Problems and Human Potential(Brussels. 1976), the author noted the absence of previous efforts to identify the complete range of sciences ss distinct from fields of study.

15. Many books or, development fall to identify "development processes". The following identifies 10 "basic processes". H. Chencery and 1. Syrquin. Patterns of Development 1953-1970, Oxford University Press (for the World Bank), 1975.

16. This is a basic concern of the Committee for Conceptual and Terminological Analysis.

17. Georges Gusdorf. Past, present and future of interdisciplinary research. International Social Science Journal, 29, 4, 1977, pp. 560-600.

18. See note 17.

18a. "No scientist will admit that voting plays a role in his subject....Scientists, especially physicians, frequently come to different results so that it is up to the relatives of the sick person (or the inhabitants of a certain area) to decide by vote about the procedure to be adopted." Paul Feyerabend. Against Method: outline of an anarchist theory of knowledge. London, Verso. 1977, pp. 302-307.

19. Union of International Associations. Yearbook of International Organizations. Brussels, Union of International Associations, 1978, 17th edition.

20. David Norton Smith has estimated there are some 5 million voluntary bodies in the USA.

21. Lee Thayer. Communication andCommunication Systems in Organization, Management, and Interpersonal Relations. Irwin, 1968, p. 202.

22. Winston Churchill made it very clear that all issues should be put to him on a single sheet of paper.

23. Little investigation of attention span has been made in relation to policy information, despite its crucial importance.

24. In a recent Assessment of Future National and International Problem Areas for the US National Science Foundation [1977], 1000 initial problems are subject to various filtration processes to reduce them to "six critical future problems".

25. The editors of the "World Problems" section of the Yearbook of World Problems and Human Potential [1976) discuss this phemonenon.

26. Method for Priority Determination in Science and Technology. Paris, Unesco, 1978, para 2.4.3 Early research is reported in the paper: George Miller. The magical number seven, plus or minus two: some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 63, 1956, pp. 81-97.

27. Antony Jay. The Corporate Man.London. ( The stage at which national government required more than 6-8 ministries should mark an important evolution in the governability of the country).

28. Harold D. Lasswell. The transition toward more sophisticated procedures. In: Davis B. Bobrow and J. L. Schwartz [Ed). Computers and the Policy-making Community; applications to international relations. Prentice-Hall, 1968, pp. 307-314. "Why do we put so much emphasis on audio-visual means. Partly because so many valuable participants in decision-making have dramatizing imaginations."

29. Rudolf Arnheim. Visual Thinking. Faber, 1970, p. 308-312.

30. "...what exists today is inter-Agency rivalry for projects." Capacity Study of the UN Development System. 1969, I, p. 76.

31. Peter Snithers. Governmental Control; a prerequisite for effective relations between the United Nations and non-UN regional organizations. New York, UNITAR, 1972.

32. Consider the lack of relationship between the Unesco SPINES Thesaurus produced by the Science Policy Division and Unesco's valuable Classification of research and development activities in terms of development objectives produced by its Office of Statistics.

33. See note 7.

34. Points made by Georges Gusdorf (see note 17], particularly in an article on Interdisciplinarity for the French-language Encyclopaedia Universalis.

35. Investigated by W. T. Jones with respect to the long-standing debate on the "romantic period" and then applied to various sciences: The Romantic Syndrome; toward a new method in cultural anthropology and history of ideas. The Hague, Mouton, 1961. He distinguishes seven axes of bias which determine pre-logical positions and then govern the subsequent positions taken in any "rational" or "logical" debate.

36. See note 12. Also: Johan Galtung: A first guide to teutonic intellectual style (Working paper for the United Nations University GPID Project, January 1978).

37. Jean Ladriere. The Challenges presented to Culture by Science and Technology. Paris, Unesco, 1977.

38. Discussed in Yearbook of World Prob1ems and Human Potential. Op.cit.

39. The number of such reference tools is now so great that reference guides are required to them.

40. Don Fabun. Dimensions of Change. Glencoe Press, 1971.

Frederic Vester. Unsere Welt; ein vernetztes System. Stuttgart, Ernst Klett, 1978.

41. Gordon L. Lippitt. Visualizing Change; model building and the change process. Fairfax, NTL Learning Resources Corporation, 1973

Walter Herdeg. Diagrams. Zurich, Graphic Press, 1974;

Jacques Bertin. Semiologie Graphique; les diagrammes, les reseaux, les cartes. Paris, Mouton, 1967.

Other references

1. Francis Levy. Le Traitement Automatise de l'Image. Paris, La Documentation Francaise, 1977, 460 p.

2. Harold L. Wilensky. Organizational Intelligence; knowledge and policy in government and industry. Basic Books, 1967.