The question is quite timely! But we always do not learn from our mistakes. The situation that we face today is because of systematic failure of the warning given by nature with sytemic indications over ages. The situation will continue. 

PS: therefore, we researchers have the responsibility to conduct proactive research irrespective of whether the results are in tune with global think tank and policy makers or not. Thank you for raising this question.

very good question, Thomas

My experience is

-you have to know what is going on in your scientific  field world wide

-you have to know what industry is doing, better what industry is planning; this you only know if you work closely with them

-you should be a referee for evaluating proposals for money giving ministeries/government

-you should be or become a wellknown member of scientific community in your

country and global

-you should treat your young scientists with respect and give them much freedom in Research; they should be able to chose their detailed items by themselves

-you should organise creative discussion panels with your collegues and coworkers

-you have to cooperate with researchers of other fields to widen your horizont

doing all that you will be able to become more and more preventive thinking inbetween decades.

Best regards Peter

The science and practice of prevention—whether related to physical disease or to

behavioral health—have matured greatly. In the field of behavioral health today, a growing

number of sophisticated models have been developed to describe how emotional and behavioral disorders develop over time. Preventive interventions based on these models have been tested empirically and shown to be effective in reducing behavioral disorders and promoting both emotional and physical health. The increased dissemination of these findings has encouraged communities to adopt and adapt preventive interventions that have been evaluated through high quality research and found effective. Policies set by both State and Federal funding agencies requiring grantees to use empirically based approaches have added further impetus to this growing community awareness and interest in implementing proven interventions.

This report has been developed to help stimulate researchers and practitioners to place

greater emphasis on how they conceptualize and measure implementation of evidence-based

prevention programs. Without question, prevention practice will reach its full maturity only

when known effective programs are implemented with integrity. Although the focus of this paper is on the implementation of school-based preventive interventions among children and youth, it has a broader application to other aspects of prevention research and practice by focusing squarely on the issue of how prevention models can be implemented with fidelity.

From my experience wuth immigration, still many countries behave in a paternalistic way. The best preventive way is to combine immigrants in a study that examine needs, feelings etc.

I have had an experience in the field of preventive maintenance of plants, machines and processes. Maybe such approach could be implemented in other areas, as we do speak about system theory. State prediction was an issue. It may be valid in social systems also, as they may be modelled. 

I was reading an article Bridging the Gap Between Prevention Research and Practice: The Interactive Systems Framework for Dissemination and Implementation. 

It recommends the interactive systems framework for dissemination and implementation. The Prevention Synthesis and Translation Systems were introduced. For example, "Translation is the process of converting (translating) scientific knowledge into practitioner-friendly products to be used for implementation..." Good article is attached.

Prevention assumes that information from the past helps to predict the future? Is this possible in a changing world where functioning evolves with time?

Dear Thomas Heise, 

Regards, Shafagat

Dear Harekrishna, Ljubomir, Peter, Wolfgang and all!

I am so happy that i meet here in RG followers of a similar path: it is true, as i already have been discussing with another question, that if the bell tolls for us, we have to find our way through the jungle of life to fulfill even against popular and well paid more easy research, what we think we are here for and can do well - sometimes because of some small special talents.

And yes, times are challenging and right now we are in charge to wake up and struggle for better and more future oriented solutions than before. Of course, as i found out by writing my last book, mankind has experienced many threshold passing periods and probabely always thought it is extremely challenging. But what we see now is that our influence and power of destruction has risen to earth and soul threatening dimensions.

And Marcel, yes: if we stop to exclude certain ways of research - you know what i mean i think - what people neglect as not important as being behind the komma and claim it to be "para" (Einstein just started this way...) - we can easily find good solutions. With the thinking of yesterday, what created the problems, we cannot find the solutions today for the way into a better tomorrow.

So i hope that there will be new and also interdisciplinary connections and circles of research build who face this more actively and can push together more positively. What do you think about this?

Dear Thomas,

we,  your anserers, thank you for asking such a challenging and valuable question to us.

To arise a right question is the difficult step!

Thank you again

Best regards Peter

In to day's scenario, most of the researches even in the public health domain are linked to the problems which are not prevalent in a particular region. Because most of the researcher in under developed and developing countries followed the researchers of the developed world. Where they have not faced problems and these countries have already solved their problems which are still to be prevalent in the under developed developing countries. So priority of these countries should be more towards the preventive aspect of health problems which should be affordable for the countries of Low & middle income. Such researches will be more beneficial and cost effective for the population of these countries. Hence, our priorities should be related to preventive research, inferences drawn from this type of research will lead to further preventive research.

All,

Prevention is not the answer. It is only part of the solution. In order to move forward we must first commit to prevention and carry that aspect of the solution forward. This is to prevent further damage.

From there we must come up with ways to increase energy productions as the population and life spans increase while putting into play practices that will net a negative output of pollution.

We must "Not" just cut carbon to zero but the society must have a negative output to ever even think we have a chance of making a difference. This is critical as the world is still in denial of the problem.

Therefore as scientists we must find ways to process, build, energize, and move things around the planet which both efficiently eliminate carbon and accomplish the tasks that everyone wants including the developing world.

We must also make this technology in such a way that everyone not only wants it but cannot do without it.

This is not a small task but can be done and I will work on the issue always.

George

There are essentially two types of research one is done by scholars as PhD candidates and from institutions  and the other which is done on self interest. The former is done as a mandatory act and latter as a passion. So the motivated researcher try address more original problems and the former which is mostly agenda driven will go by the sponsor's or industry's interest. any organized activity in the society will be just a reflection of the ethos and egos of the society. The society is becoming more and more materialistic, competitive and profit driven. It is difficult to sell the idea of Prevention  in such an environment and hence is becoming more and more a lip service in the society.Whether in clinical practice or research the trend is the same. Perhaps prevention is more difficult in the modern life because of the influence of the consumer culture and sacrifice of natural way of life . The case of noncommunicable disease like cardiovascular disease and cancer are examples of this.Philosophically health promotion is the best  and ideal level of prevention. The truth is that most of us are unable to practice specific protection even. So everybody goes to treatment and prevention becomes a lip service. 

Dear Thomas,

This is an absolutely interesting and very modern question. Thank you !

The more I study Medicine, and both as a medical practitioner as in teaching the fundamental basis of Medicine,  the more I notice that the strategical basis of the medical reasoning (in diagnosis and also in the strategy of combating diseases), apply fully to the modern human Societies.

The diagnosis of the modern ailments of Human Societies are best evaluated with the medical tools of reasoning.

Also, the stategy of combating diseases, especially those considered as incurable, and their preventive measures, could or should be applied to prevent the more difficult «incurable» ailments of society.

As I write these few notes, I cannot help quoting two great examples of the medical «mind», as applied to human societies:

1. Sir Arthur Connan Doyle (a scottish medical practitioner) brilliantly exposed the fundaments of medical diagnosis, as applied to the detective works of his Sherlock Holmes character. (the books are worth analysing from this perspective...)

2. I also think of the great Aristotle (best renown as one of the most brilliant philosophers of all times, he was a good anatomist, and the Medical practioner of the court of Philip of Capadoccia, elected as preceptor of Alexander the Great.). I cannot resist the thought that Aristotle taught the fundaments of strategics of combat to his disciple, thus permitting him to apply the strategy of the combat of diseases to the strategy of conquering the World... (I wonder ! ) 

autistic, or schyzoid ?

dear Wolfgang...  Ishould think that an autistic mind might not be able to carefully observe analyse the world... or do they, before they close up and decide not to relate ? you may be right...

Asperger syndrome would grant him the fine ability to play violin.

As hard as it may be to diagnose literary descriptions, I should add that it may be the more difficult to superbly offer diagnostic characters through literature, without offending the general public's sensitivity...

Hello

France and Europe did not thought about immigration at all.

They put all Mislems in some areas and hope that they will acsorb vy themselves.

It does not work that way, and there is a long way to go in integrating this population

This is such a hard problem but I think it is linked to making people care enough to take action.  We act differently when we feel urgency. 

For example, have a look at Bruce Alberts' article, "How Targeted Should Research and Higher Education Be?" (1994).  In it, he simulates some possibilities of what might happen if the academic structure stayed the way it was back then. 

Fast forward 20 years and his efforts continue with collaboration on the same problem, which has now grown and is named "Rescuing Biomedical Research".  The first statement you see on that page is:

“…doing nothing is not an option. The stakes are enormous …”

Opinion: Addressing systemic problems in the biomedical research enterprise, PNAS, 2/17/2015.

It just might be the case that we won't take action until something interrupts our business.  Education at earlier stages is necessary to make people more aware of our own attitudes about certain futures and that they matter. 

My best concrete recommendation would be to communicate clearer expectations for how models are used to persuade and make decisions. I don't get the sense that experts (even among experts!) and the general public have the same ideas about what is involved in model-based reasoning. 

Dear Jerry, i think you hit an important point.

We must start earlier. So kindergarden or school? I always had the feeling, that teachers are not taken care of well enough as they can do wrong so many things and thus influence the future of the kids and at the same time our future so much.

In which country or culture are they aware about the grandness of their task?

May be the most important is to make the kids sensible to their own abilities and then to train them to dare to let them grow whatever it is in a positive way?

Thomas,

I asked Wilensky when earliest Netlogo is intended for students and he said 5th grade (10 years old).  I talked to 5th graders and they appear ready.  I gave them a few challenges and they were quick to come up with beautiful, intuitive explanations for natural phenomena; e.g., why birds fly in V-formation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKkzqk3RMLc

____________

Adults, on the other hand, carry a lot of baggage when it comes to implementing appeals of persuasive argument.  I say this in response to your last question because although well-intentioned, some teachers may promote ways of thinking that are wrong, simply because they don’t know any better.

For instance, consider Peirce’s warning:

“Few persons care to study logic, because everybody conceives himself to be proficient enough in the art of reasoning already. But I observe that this satisfaction is limited to one's own ratiocination, and does not extend to that of other men.”

The following indicates his belief in a correctness to normative thinking:

“In 1896 William James published his Will to Believe, and later his Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results, which pushed this method to such extremes as must tend to give us pause…”

I have met academics, sensible non-academics, even leaders of educational philanthropies who think like James.  They promote things like “curiosity” and “failing” with the best intentions but do not realize how such terms simultaneously carry both defects and complementary virtues in meaning (e.g., curious or obsessive?...failing or learning through failure?).  Such misconceptions are easily misused to justify bad behavior, which is hard to overcome unless people know clearly, and agree at the outset, complete rules for mediation. 

If the urgency is upon us, and we are to teach it correctly, then a decision must be made on what is the best that has been thought and said about thinking and decision-making using models.  If “the humanities are that form of knowledge in which the knower is revealed”, then the hero-knower in model-based reasoning is Peirce, not James. 

His method involves understanding how to use triadic relations (semiosis).  The idea of one, two, three…freedom, constraint, sensibility…icon, index, symbol…esthetics, ethics, logic…C, A, B.  He addresses and treats certain generals of passionate disagreements in A Guess at the Riddle. http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/guess/guess.htm#1

______________

But there will be many readers who won’t know what I am talking about and will resist because it’s yet another thing to think about.  But if a better alternative than Peirce as Knower cannot be produced by well-intentioned objectioners, then what is the best way forward?  We agree to disagree (many?) or move along with a defeasible argument (one)?  Hopefully, the matter will be institutionalized as Peirce had hoped and intended (c.f., COMMENT to L75.349 by Ransdell (Rev. 7-3-98). 

“Little known as my papers have been, I believe that there are some men, whose judgments must command respect in the world of science, who will testify to the utility of the work that I have done, and to the probable utility of that which I am about to do.  It is also most desirable that the presentation of each should be as brief and as closely confined to what is pertinent as is consistent with completeness and with perspicuity.”