Outline

Acceleration Studies and Universal Evolutionary Development Studies

Acceleration Studies and Universal Evolutionary Development Studies

One of ASF's long-term goals is to encourage the development of multidisciplinary educational programs for exploring accelerating change at the undergraduate, professional, and graduate level. We seek to do this in at least two broad domains:

1. Acceleration Studies (a generalist, policy and applications-oriented, program) and
2. Universal Evolutionary Development Studies (a multidisciplinary, theory-oriented, technical program).

The goal of Acceleration Studies is better forecasting and management of accelerating technological change. The goal of Universal Evolutionary Development Studies is better understanding of evolutionary developmental hierarchical emergence within special subsets of physical-computational systems in the universe. It assumes the paradigm that our universe undergoes not only evolutionary, but also developmental change.

1. Acceleration Studies at the graduate level might reasonably include aspects of such subjects as forecasting, roadmapping, scenario development, futures studies, risk management, science and technology studies (infotech, physics, nanotech, biotech, neuro and cognitive science), productivity metrics, technology assessment and policy, history of science and technology, cybernetics, sociology and economics, information science, productivity metrics, engineering and operations research. In addition to baseline forecasting, this program would focus on the benefits, choices, and risks of a range of potential developments in accelerating systems of change, and would necessarily also consider the emerging sociopolitical and ethical issues of rapidly increasing technical productivity and machine intelligence. Today's science and technology studies, operations research, and technology policy graduate programs offer a useful start toward this kind of curriculum, but need to become more acceleration-aware.

2. Universal Evolutionary Development Studies at the graduate level might reasonably include aspects of such subjects as evolutionary developmental (evo-devo) biology, niche construction theory, systems biology, astrobiology and astrophysics, complex systems research, nonlinear mathematics, phase transition theory, hierarchy theory, catastrophe theory, anthropic theory, theory of computation, engineering, physical and social science, cybernetics, information and autonomy theory, philosopy of science and technology, and other disciplines relevant to modeling the accelerating development of physical domains of change in a range of universal and local systems. This program would focus on dynamical models of change in complex systems, including the universe as a complex system, and would necessarily also consider philosophical and teleological issues of the meaning and purpose of universal change in relation to current scientific theory and technical developments at individual, institutional, national, and global scales. Again, today's complex systems graduate programs provide a useful start toward this kind of curriculum, but still have some shortcomings with regard to broadly modeling accelerating change.

As yet, there is no U.S. graduate institution or academic department committed to multidisciplinary investigation of the mechanisms or trajectory of accelerating change (cultural, historical, computational, universal), from either acceleration studies (application) or evolutionary development studies (theory) perspectives. If you know of any under development, please let us know.

One good foundation for an Acceleration Studies curriculum would be the development of an M.S. in Technological and Social Forecasting at a major university, involving a mix of three currently studied academic subjects: 1) Forecasting and Roadmapping, 2) Science and Technology Studies (STS), and 3) Futures Studies.

Each of these domains provide complementary tools to understanding, modeling, and managing accelerating change, and an M.S. teaching all of them would help us graduate a new generation of methodologically-sound futurists in the United States. Since more rigorous efforts in the 1950's and 1960's (e.g., the RAND corporation, cybernetics, early operations research), many contemporary futurists have been both forecasting-challenged and science and technology undertrained. There is much to learn in the first two domains (forecasting and STS) before one should engage in falsifiable extrapolation about the future.

Harold Linstone, editor of the journal Technological Forecasting and Social Change, is one of small number of scientifically-grounded futurists who presently champions this perspective. When you require predictive validity as a basis for your efforts, you rapidly come to understand that only a subset of things are particularly easily predicted, making them uniquely important to model and understand from a policy perspective. Most centrally, many varieties of accelerating technological change are surprisingly predictable/ forecastable meta-trends. They don't revert periodically to baseline, like so many cyclical or pendular social changes, but continue to accelerate relentlessly, irrespective of culture. This kind of change is thus something both mainstream futurists and the general public really needs to understand better in order to substantially improve our collective decisionmaking.

For those not willing to wait for formal Acceleration Studies curricula to develop, on the generalist end, M.S. or Ph.D. programs in Science and Technology Studies (STS), Philosophy of Science would do, or on the applied end, Technology Policy (TP), an M.B.A. in technology management or operations research, an Engineering program with an STS/TP thesis, or a program in Futures Studies (a still underdeveloped field) are good current options for those seeking a broad education in understanding and guiding accelerating technological change. You should make it a prerequisite to find individual faculty who strongly share your interests. This is particularly important because institionally speaking, almost all of these programs are still broadly acceleration-unaware here in the early 21st century.

With regard to a Universal Evolutionary Development Studies Ph.D., programs in Physical Science, Evolutionary Biology, Developmental Biology, Convergence Studies, Astrobiology, Cosmology, Mathematics, Systems Science, Complexity Studies, Nonlinear Science, Information Theory/Information Studies/Informatics (IS), and Technological, Economic, Political, and Social Development provide some of the best current academic possibilities, but again these have curricula that are mostly acceleration-unaware at present.

For an outline of one speculative hypothesis in universal evolutionary development studies, a hypothesis that I wish to investigate more careful in coming years, see Intro to the Developmental Singularity Hypothesis.

Due to historical dominance of orthodox Darwinist evolutionary biology, even models of progressive or developmental change, including most hierarchy theory, are still considered an extreme idea in academia. At present, the best you can hope for in most of these programs is to learn valuable technical skills and theoretical background and then strike out on your own original synthetic acceleration- and evo-devo-aware research.

Unfortunately, no institution we know of yet has formal graduate programs in either Acceleration Studies or Universal Evolutionary Development Studies. Visit our Advanced Degree Programs page for recommended generalist and specialist degree programs available today.

Fortunately, several of these programs have enough flexibility to allow you to create your own acceleration and universal evo-devo oriented course of study. Nevertheless, you should keep in mind that such study has the potential to be a risky career move at this still-early stage of acceleration awareness. Have a realistic understanding of what you can accomplish within formal academia. Your most ambitious work may need to be done as an independent scholar, or outside the confines of your department.