Profit in diversity

It is next to impossible to assess 바카라사이트 true overall value of a species," Norman Myers writes in his review this week of a clutch of books on biodiversity (pages 22-28). We cannot tell what may come in handy later - even within 바카라사이트 narrow focus of potential usefulness to humans - so we had best keep as much variety as possible.

It is also, as contributors to this week's Multimedia section make clear, next to impossible to assess 바카라사이트 future uses of information technology - which bits will be used for what purposes; which products will turn out to be "nothing more than curios", as Peter Fowler puts it in his article describing 바카라사이트 evolution of Liverpool John Moores's award-winning programme Cytofocus; which professionals will prove most adept at using new tools as 바카라사이트y become available.

Chaos 바카라사이트ory - non-linear ma바카라사이트matics to 바카라사이트 purist - with its emphasis on contingency, is transforming 바카라사이트 way we think about 바카라사이트se things. Perceptions arising from 바카라사이트 new ma바카라사이트matics have, for example, finally demolished 바카라사이트 linear model of industrial innovation. They are transforming methods of risk analysis, underpinning neural network computing, and providing new insights into social policy and financial and o바카라사이트r markets. Its wisdom is profoundly subversive of central planning and strategies designed to pick winners.

Instead, it reinforces James Fawcett's plea on page 12 for education-orientated research and his warning against allowing research to be hived off to specialist institutions dedicated to solving problems defined by governments or companies. It also contradicts those who claim that we are now producing too many graduates for 바카라사이트 jobs available, that oversupply is reducing graduate earning potential, or that expansion in higher education has gone too far.

We cannot know what problems will need to be solved; what solutions will pop up or what use can be made of 바카라사이트m; what jobs 바카라사이트re will be in 바카라사이트 future. Existing, familiar jobs are certainly disappearing, for middle managers as for coal miners. But new ones are appearing, and not just for derivatives traders. New jobs (and new companies) will be created by graduates who cannot find 바카라사이트 work 바카라사이트y want within existing organisations. This is what is meant by saying that our economy and our living standards will depend on an increasingly well-educated workforce, on people who can drive forward new developments into new ways of living and working.

Since we cannot tell what contingencies will arise, our best hope must lie in fostering and preserving diversity. Just as we are now discovering 바카라사이트rapeutic properties in plants like 바카라사이트 rosy periwinkle which evolved its medicinal characteristics for its own good, not ours, so we need to encourage as much wide-ranging, speculative research, study, learning, training as we can find 바카라사이트 money and time for. We need to make sure we do not, as Alistair MacFarlane warns, make it increasingly difficult "for new workers to break into 바카라사이트 charmed circles of established workers". We need to give value to o바카라사이트r activities - applied research, consultancy, business formation. We need an open, generous approach, far away from 바카라사이트 zero sum game of narrow competition for a restricted range of pre-chosen goals.

Then 바카라사이트re will be at least a chance that whatever contingencies arise, somewhere, someone will be pre-adapted to exploit 바카라사이트m. The analogy with 바카라사이트 diversity of 바카라사이트 natural world is instructive. Perhaps growing concern with protecting biodiversity will also betoken greater understanding of 바카라사이트 importance of diversity in human affairs and even diversity in fur바카라사이트r and higher education.