Is an Objective and Analytical Way of Analyzing the Arts
What Is an Belittling Approach?
Contents
Introduction
A few thoughts from Morgan Jones, primary of assay
Our fundamental premise
Why is an belittling approach whatsoever better than what nosotros are doing now?
Can you prove an analytical arroyo is the simply reliable way that can piece of work?
A more formal proof it'due south the just reliable mode forward:
Proposition ane - Analytical approach is only approach that works on difficult bug.
Proposition two - The global ecology sustainability problem is a hard problem.
Statement conclusion
The SCOPE Written report - This defines the complete ecology sustainability problem
Introduction
Be careful. This article doesn't teach you what to think. It teaches yous how to think.
More than than anything else, an belittling approach is the use of an appropriate process to break a problem down into the smaller pieces necessary to solve information technology. Each slice becomes a smaller and easier problem to solve.
Problem solving is puzzle solving. Each smaller problem is a smaller piece of the puzzle to detect and solve.
Putting the pieces of the puzzle together involves understanding the relevant parts of the system. In one case all the central pieces are plant and understood, the puzzle as a whole "snaps" together, sometimes in a final flash of insight.
The key word in the in a higher place definition is "appropriate." If your problem solving process doesn't fit the trouble at mitt, you can execute the procedure to the highest quality possible and nevertheless non solve the trouble. This is the reason nearly people neglect to solve hard problems. They're using an inappropriate arroyo without realizing it. The process doesn't fit the problem.
You lot can await high and low, and nether every bush-league in apparently sight, but unless yous're using an appropriate analytical approach you will never find enough pieces of the puzzle to solve a difficult problem. Even the most vivid and heroic effort volition lead to cypher if you lot're using a problem solving process that doesn't fit the problem.
Lack of a process that fit the problem is why the alchemists failed to turn pb into golden. It's as well why so many people and organizations, likewise equally entire social movements, are failing to turn opportunities into successes.
What are the pieces of your puzzle?
How are you lot going to find them?
The rest of this article is a deep look at a tried-and-truthful way of answering that question.
A few thoughts from Morgan Jones, principal of analysis
An belittling approach is as well known equally "structuring one'due south analysis." Hither'south what Morgan Jones, former CIA analyst, has to say in his widely acclaimed The Thinker's Toolkit, 1995. The book contains fourteen powerful belittling techniques for solving difficult problems:
Exactly what does structuring one'south analysis hateful? The word analysis means separating a problem into its elective elements. Doing so reduces complex problems to their simplest terms. (folio xi)
If we are to solve issues, from those confined to a single private to those affecting whole nations, nosotros must learn how to identify and break out of restrictive mindsets and give full, serious consideration to alternative solutions. We must learn how to deal with the compulsions of the human mind that, by defeating objective assay, shut the mind to alternatives. Failure to consider alternatives fully is the most mutual cause of flawed or incomplete analysis. (page thirteen)
Equally a result [of taking an instinctive, intuitive approach] we unwittingly, repeatedly, habitually commit a diverseness of analytic sins. For example: (page xi)
We commonly begin our analysis of a problem past formulating our conclusions; we thus starting time at what should be the end of the analytic procedure.
Our analysis commonly focuses on the solution nosotros intuitively favor; we therefore give inadequate attention to alternative solutions.
Not surprisingly, the solution we intuitively favor is, more often than not, the first ane that seems satisfactory. Economists call this phenomenon satisficing (a merging of satisfy and suffice). Herbert Simon coined the neologism in 1955, referring to the observation that managers most of the fourth dimension settle for a satisfactory solution that suffices for the fourth dimension being rather than pursue the optimum solution that a 'rational model' would likely yield.
We tend to confuse 'discussing/thinking difficult' about a problem with 'analyzing' it, when in fact the two activities are not at all the same. Discussing and thinking hard tin exist similar pedaling an do bike: they expend lots of free energy and sweat but go nowhere.
Like the traveler who is so distracted past the surroundings that he loses his manner, we focus on the substance (bear witness, arguments, and conclusions) and not on the procedure of our analysis. We aren't interested in the process and don't actually sympathise it.
Well-nigh people are functionally illiterate when it comes to structuring their problems. When asked how they structured their analysis of a particular problem, virtually haven't the vaguest notion what the questioner is talking about. The give-and-take structuring is simply not a part of their analytic vocabulary.
Morgan Jones then reaches these ii key conclusions:
In the instinctive approach the mind generally remains closed to alternatives, favoring instead the first satisfactory decision or solution. Consequently, the effect is often flawed or at least less effective than would be the case with the structured arroyo.
In the structured approach the mind remains open, enabling one to examine each element of the conclusion or problem separately, systematically, and sufficiently, ensuring that all alternatives are considered. The issue is almost always more comprehensive and more effective than with the instinctive arroyo.
Now we tin define a few terms: Analytical means the use of assay to solve issues. Assay is breaking a problem down into smaller issues so they tin can be solved individually. Good analysis uses a process to straight the assay. A process is a repeatable series of steps to achieve a goal, such equally a recipe or Robert'southward Rules of Guild for parliamentary procedure. For a procedure to work, information technology must fit the problem and be used correctly.
That'southward why an analytical approach is the use of an appropriate process to break a problem downward into the elements necessary to solve it. Each chemical element becomes a smaller and easier trouble to solve.
Allow's apply these insights to the problem we seek to solve.
Our fundamental premise
The fundamental premise of Thwink.org is that simply an belittling approach tin can solve hard social problems.
The globe'southward problem solvers are failing to solve problems like global ecology sustainability and the corporate authority problem because they are pushing on low instead of high leverage points. Activists are presently running blind. They're similar a blind bull stumbling around in a mainland china shop. They tin't meet the departure between what resolves root causes and what does non due to reliance on an instinctual trouble solving process rather than an analytical one. If activists would switch to an analytical approach that fits the trouble, as science did back in the 17th century when it adopted the Scientific Method, they would be able to correctly analyze hard bug and observe the high leverage points necessary to solve them.
Only then will the impossible become the possible.
Why is an analytical approach whatever ameliorate than what we are doing now?
Because what public interest activists are using now is an intuitive approach. Intuitive approaches work on easy problems. They sometimes work on medium difficulty trouble. But they fail on difficult problems because an intuitive approach is simply incapable of the deep, methodical approach required to solve hard circuitous system social issues.
The problems the environmental movement faces today, like climatic change and abnormally high rates of species extinction, are immensely difficult. If nosotros exercise not take an analytical approach all we have left to fall dorsum on is an instinctual intuitive arroyo. History has shown over and over that this doesn't piece of work , fifty-fifty with heroic effort, on classic social bug like these:
Environmental sustainability
Overpopulation
Recurring wars
Recurring large recessions
Excessive income inequality
Institutional large-calibration poverty
Endemic political corruption
Corporate authorisation
Every one of these problems is centuries or millennia old. At that place must be a reason all attempts at solution have failed, because every consequence has a cause. Nosotros hypothesize the master reason is reliance in a process that doesn't fit the trouble.
Reliance on an informal intuitive problem solving process is the master reason the environmental move is failing to make the progress so urgently needed. Because of this fatal failure, and it cannot exist called anything else, the movement is rapidly losing its credibility with the public, governments, and donors. Just we cannot blame the opposition. Nor can we blame the problem for existence so intractable. We tin can only arraign ourselves for doing something terribly wrong.
Thwink.org believes that environmentalism's central error is failure to use a process that fits the problem. The process must center on root cause analysis. This is the cardinal theme this website will be driving home fourth dimension and time again, because an analytical arroyo is the only known method that works on difficult problems.
I don't believe an analytical approach is the only reliable way that can work. Tin yous prove this?
Thanks. Here'south a brusque proof:
An belittling approach is the utilise of an appropriate process to interruption a problem down into the elements necessary to solve information technology. Each subelement becomes a smaller and easier trouble to solve. It follows that a non-analytical approach is just the opposite: the use of an inappropriate process, which is unable to interruption a trouble down into the elements necessary to solve it. Because this is not washed, the problem remains also big and complex to solve. Therefore an belittling approach is the only reliable way that will work on solving the global environmental sustainability problem, because that trouble is besides big and complex too solve any other mode.
Hither'southward another short proof:
This is a difficult problem. Unlike simple problems, difficult problems crave an analysis to solve them, considering finding the correct solution requires a rigorous assay. A correct analysis requires reliable knowledge. And the only known manner to produce reliable noesis, noesis that you lot know is true, is the Scientific Method. Therefore, because the Scientific Method is an analytical approach, an analytical arroyo is the simply known way to solve hard problems.
Here's a longer proof:
A more formal proof information technology's the only reliable way forward:
Any proposition with "the only reliable style" in information technology is a huge merits. Boggling claims require boggling testify. Hither information technology is:
An analytical approach is the use of an appropriate process to break a trouble downwardly into the elements necessary to solve it. Each element becomes a smaller and easier problem to solve. It follows that a non-analytical approach is but the opposite: the use of an inappropriate process, which is unable to pause a problem downwardly into the elements necessary to solve it. Because this is not done, the problem remains likewise big and complex to solve. That is one reason an analytical approach is the simply reliable way that will work on solving the global ecology sustainability trouble, because that trouble is as well big and complex too solve any other fashion.
Let'due south take a longer arroyo to proving an analytical arroyo is non only a better style, it is the only way.
We will try to bear witness ii things:
ane. The belittling arroyo is the only known approach that works consistently on difficult problems.
2. The global environmental sustainability trouble is a difficult trouble.
If both propositions are truthful, and so it follows that an analytical arroyo is the best way to solve the global environmental sustainability trouble. Let's bear witness proposition (1), and then (2), and finally conclude the statement.
Proposition 1 - The analytical arroyo is the only known arroyo that works consistently on difficult issues.
First we need to prove that the analytical approach is the only known approach that works consistently on difficult issues.
The analytical arroyo is the formal use of reason to solve problems. The first rules to formal reasoning were invented past Aristotle (384 to 322 BC). Reasoning correctly involves representing the constituent elements of a argument with premises, intermediate conclusions, and final conclusions.
Here's a unproblematic example showing the divergence between an intuitive and an analytical approach. Suppose you lot demand to multiply two three digit numbers. Simply a few geniuses tin can do it in their head, seemingly intuitively. The rest of us cannot no matter how hard we try. We are forced to take an belittling approach, which is structuring 1's assay.
A multiplication trouble is structured by writing the two numbers down every bit shown. Solving the trouble and then becomes as piece of cake as falling off a log considering it requires merely multiplying or adding two i digit numbers at a time.
Nosotros use hundreds of similar analytical approaches every 24-hour interval, like planning a driving route, composing a repast, and planning how to all-time arroyo an important conversation or project. These are done and so ofttimes then fast they seen intuitive. But in fact they are belittling.
An belittling approach takes a trouble, breaks it down into its constituent elements so equally to understand the problem, and and so adds elements that represent a solution. These elements form the formal argument that this is the trouble and this is the solution.
The reason an analytical approach is required for difficult problems is that all this becomes besides complicated to do intuitively. Each chemical element must exist represented formally, such as with exact phrases in writing or with equations in a simulation model, and so that the problem solver(s) can go over and over an evolving analysis to exist certain information technology is correct. Complex problems have dozens or hundreds of elements, and hundreds or thousands of relationships between those elements. However the mind has simply 7 (plus or minus ii) short term memory banks. This causes the heed to overload chop-chop on any but the simplest of problems, or problems it has encountered before and memorized the solution.
Before the invention of the Scientific Method in the 17th century, science was based on tradition and guesswor6k. Afterward it was based on an analytical arroyo. This momentous change caused scientific discipline to shift into a whole new manner of thinking, one so productive information technology apace led to the Industrial Revolution and all that science and engineering science have brought u.s. today. Scientific discipline knows of no other method that volition work to produce reliable cognition. This should exist proof plenty that an belittling approach is required to solve difficult problems.
To summarize, hard problems require analysis because finding the correct solution rationally instead of by guessing requires a rigorous structured approach. A correct assay requires reliable agreement, i.e. reliable knowledge. And the merely known way to produce reliable knowledge, cognition that you lot know is true, is the Scientific Method. Therefore, because the Scientific Method is an analytical approach, an belittling approach is the only known way to solve difficult problems.
Modern civilization is an analytical earth. We alive or die by our analytical ability. If yous tin can't correctly structure the problem you're working on, you volition probably fail to solve the problem.
Suggestion 2 - The global environmental sustainability problem is a difficult trouble.
Next we need to bear witness that the global environmental sustainability trouble is a difficult problem. To illustration how valuable an analytical approach tin be, allow's utilise one.
Difficult ecology problems take characteristics making them inherently hard to solve. Past contrast, easy environmental problems have the following fundamental factors that make them fairly like shooting fish in a barrel to solve:
The Six Factors of Easy Issues
i. Number of types of causes - Like shooting fish in a barrel to solve problems are caused primarily by a single type of behavior, such as the way acrid rain is caused more often than not by the burning of sulfur-containing coal, or the way a river may be mostly polluted past a single grouping of chemicals, such every bit agricultural runoff or factory waste. Easy problems tend to have one main root cause.
2. Proof of cause and effect - For easy problems there is solid proof of cause and effect, such equally the way accumulation of heavy metals in animals higher upwardly in the food chain causes health problems, reproductive problems, or expiry.
three. Displacement in time and infinite - Like shooting fish in a barrel issues take a short displacement in time and space. This makes cause and effect more obvious. Deportation is the "distance" from crusade to effect. For time this may be anywhere from minutes to years to centuries. For infinite the deportation may be local, regional, or global.
4. Size of trouble source - In easy problems the problem source typically involves a relatively small segment of guild.
five. Solution expense - The solution is relatively inexpensive.
6. Solution complexity - The solution is relatively simple.
Difficult problems are just the reverse. They commonly have multiple types of behavior that cause them, tenuous proof of cause and event, a long delay in fourth dimension and space, the source involves a large segment of society, and the solution is relatively expensive and complicated. Each of these solitary make a trouble difficult to solve. When combined they tin make it close to impossible to even conceive of a solution that can exist proven to have a high probability of working.
The combination of the factors also causes the emergent trouble of solution change resistance. This phenomenon occurs when people know what they should do, but they merely don't want to do it. This is clearly nowadays. An outstanding example occurred in 1999 when the US Senate voted 95 to nothing confronting the Kyoto Protocol treaty on climate change. The treaty has not been brought dorsum to the floor since.
The pieces of the puzzle of this problem were small-scale in number and piece of cake to find:
- The problem was caused by a single type of behavior.
- In that location was solid proof of cause and outcome.
- The problem source involved a pocket-sized segment of the system.
- There was a relatively like shooting fish in a barrel cheap solution.
Thus, despite the utilize of a traditional trouble solving arroyo, the ecology movement solved this trouble.
An example of an easy problem was the ozone layer depletion problem. While it looked like a tremendously hard problem at the time, it was not. It fit the pattern of piece of cake environmental problems. It was caused mostly due to a single type of behavior: chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) released into the atmosphere from air conditioners and refrigeration equipment. It had solid proof of cause and effect, later scientific studies were completed. The problem source involved a relatively small segment of society: the CFC manufacturing and utilise industry. And finally, information technology had a relatively easy and cheap solution: switch to a substitute.
There was a medium delay in fourth dimension and a large delay in space, but because the other four factors were nowadays, the ozone layer depletion trouble fit the pattern of a unproblematic trouble, despite its apparent size and complexity. As a result, by the 1990s the ozone depletion problem was largely solved.
But it was the only major environmental problem that was. The rest, such as climate modify, groundwater depletion, topsoil loss, deforestation, and abnormally high species extinction rates, remain unsolved. The reason is they exercise not fit the pattern of an easy problem, and so are beyond the capabilities of the conventional trouble solving approach.
The global environmental sustainability problem falls into the difficult stop of the spectrum for all of these factors:
The Six Factors of Difficult Problems
i. Number of types of causes - Hard problem have many types of causes. Almost every industrialized action we take to produce our food, go to piece of work, generate the free energy nosotros consume, build our homes and offices and factories, and then on is a cause. Difficult problems tend to have multiple main root causes.
2. Proof of cause and outcome - In hard bug proof tends to be weak or takes a long time to mature. Although proof we must change course to be sustainable is seen as solid by scientists, it is still seen as weak by society, because of arguments like new technology will solve the problem (technological optimism), besides as the way the very thought of unsustainability is inconceivable to many people (the cultural blinds pot problem).
iii. Displacement in time and space - Difficult problems usually have long displacement in time and space. For example, climate change has a time deportation of centuries and a space displacement of global.
four. Size of trouble source - Difficult problems are systemic and then their intermediate causes arise from many places in the system. In the sustainability problem, the trouble source is nearly every person, corporation, and government on the planet.
5. Solution expense - Hard bug usually take expensive solutions. Solving the environmental sustainability problem will exist terribly expensive. At that place'south much more than climate change to solve. In that location's the other nine unsolved problems in the Scope written report (see below): freshwater scarcity, deforestation and desertification, freshwater pollution, lost of biodiversity, air pollution (excluding climatic change), soil deterioration, chemical pollution, and natural resource depletion. They must all be solved simultaneously. Most demand to exist solve reactively, which is much more than expensive.
6. Solution complexity - Difficult problems usually have complex solutions. How do you get vii billion people to fundamentally change their entire life style to solve the entire sustainability problem in only a generation or two? Whatever the solution, it will exist inherently complex.
This proves suggestion (two), that the global ecology sustainability problem is a difficult problem. In fact, information technology probably ranks every bit the nigh difficult one ever encountered by Homo sapiens in his short 200,000 years of existence.
Statement decision
Permit's epitomize our argument. Nosotros are trying to evidence two things: (i) That the analytical approach is the only known approach that works consistently on difficult issues, and (2) That the global environmental sustainability problem is a difficult trouble. If both propositions are true, then it follows that an belittling approach is the all-time manner to solve the global environmental sustainability trouble.
Now we can complete the argument. The above has proven (i) and (ii) to be true. Therefore it follows that an analytical approach is the best way for the environmental movement to solve the global ecology sustainability problem. Because this is so radically different from the nowadays arroyo, information technology qualifies as a new paradigm.
The item analytical approach nosotros recommend is Belittling Activism.
The Telescopic Written report - This defines the complete environmental sustainability problem
This is a fine case of an belittling approach.
Results of the Scientific Committee on Bug of the Surroundings (SCOPE) report may be found in Global Environmental Outlook 2000. The commission performed a report to find the world's summit ecology bug. The results were summarized in a listing of "major emerging issues" on page 339. Some issues on the list are social, such as "poor governance." Others are contributors (proximate causes) to other problems, such as "population growth and movement." Extraneous problems similar these were removed and then as to leave only bona fide ecology problems. The top 11 are listed below. Nosotros have added the third column.
| The SCOPE Study | ||
| Environmental Problem | Urgency | Solution Success |
| 1. Climate change | 51% | Low |
| ii. Freshwater scarcity | 29% | Low |
| 3. Deforestation and desertification | 28% | Low |
| 4. Freshwater pollution | 28% | Medium |
| 5. Loss of biodiversity | 23% | Low |
| 6. Air pollution (excluding climatic change) | xx% | Medium |
| 7. Soil deterioration | eighteen% | Low |
| viii. Ecosystem operation | 17% | Depression |
| 9. Chemical pollution | 16% | Medium |
| 10. Stratospheric ozone depletion | 15% | High |
| 11. Natural resource depletion | xi% | Low |
The percents are the percentage of SCOPE report respondents who mentioned the issue. More than than 200 environmental experts in over fifty countries contributed to the study. 51% of all respondents mentioned climate change as a major emerging issue. Note the problems are ranked by urgency, not difficulty.
This list defines the complete global environmental sustainability problem in terms of symptoms. However, it contains discouraging news: But the tenth problem on the listing, the ozone hole trouble, is on a adequately sure path to solution. The other problems are growing worse with no solution in sight.
RELATED Information
What Are Activists Doing Now Instead of an Analytical Approach?
Public interest activist around the planet are nearly all practicing Classic Activism. It's a time honored traditional approach. It works fine on piece of cake problems. It sometimes works or takes a long fourth dimension on medium difficulty issues. It fails completely on difficult problems because Classic Activism has no concept of root cause resolution or the need to care for change resistance as a distinct and separate problem to solve. Hence Archetype Activism has no need of a real analysis. It relies on intuition instead.
This will come up every bit a huge shock to classic activists, because they sincerely believe they are belittling. They analyze problems all the time.
But they do non clarify what matters. They only clarify the "proper practices" necessary to solve the symptoms of the problem, similar renewable free energy and the Three Rs of reduce, reuse, recycle. This so called analysis only deals with the superficial layer of the trouble, every bit explained in the glossary entry on causal chain and illustrated below.
Classic activist solutions deal only with the superficial layer of the trouble, so they are superficial solutions. These are as well called symptomatic solutions.
Source: https://www.thwink.org/sustain/articles/000_AnalyticalApproach/index.htm
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