The future of human benefit knowledge: Notes on a World Brain for the 21st century

Futures

Volumn 39, Issue 8, 2007, Pages 955-962

  Marien, Michael ^a  

^a Future Survey   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

KNOWLEDGE; TWENTY FIRST CENTURY;

EID: 34547570859     PISSN: 00163287     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2007.03.005     Document Type: Article

References (25)

1. Wells H.G. World Brain (1938), Books for Libraries Press, Freeport, NY pp. 66-67
2. Wells H.G. World Brain (1938), Books for Libraries Press, Freeport, NY p. 69
3. Wells H.G. World Brain (1938), Books for Libraries Press, Freeport, NY p. 70
4. Wells H.G. World Brain (1938), Books for Libraries Press, Freeport, NY pp. 79-80
5. Lynd R.S. Knowledge for What? The Place of Social Science in American Culture (1939), Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ p. 7
6. Lynd R.S. Knowledge for What? (1939), Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ p. 16
7. Lynd R.S. Knowledge for What? (1939), Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ p. 250
8. UNESCO. Towards Knowledge Societies: UNESCO World Report (2005), UNESCO Publishing, Paris
9. Gross B.M. The Managing of Organizations (1964), Free Press, New York (See discussion of information overload (pp. 857-861) and proposal for Operation Basic: Bibliographies, Abstracts, Surveys, Indices, and Copies made available)
10. In: Finnegan R. (Ed). Participating in the Knowledge Society: Researchers Beyond the University Walls (2005), Palgrave, New York
11. Marien M. Futures studies in the 21st century: a reality-based view. Futures 34 3/4 (2002) 261-281
12. In: Thakur R., Cooper A.F., and English J. (Eds). International Commissions and the Power of Ideas (2005), United Nations University Press, Tokyo
13. Postman N. Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985), Viking, New York
14. Rees M. Our Final Century: The 50/50 Threat to Humanity's Survival (2003), Heinemann, London The title of the US edition, Our Final Hour: A Scientist's Warning (Basic Books, 2003) is less explicit. Also see Richard A. Posner, Catastrophe: Risk and Response (Oxford University Press, 2004), which borrows from Rees in compiling an impressive 70-page survey of possible disasters
15. J. Platt, What we must do, Science, 166, 28 November 1969. This is a classic essay ranking US and world problems by estimated time to crisis and intensity. Also see J.F. Rischard, High Noon: Twenty Global Problems, Twenty Years to Solve Them (Basic Books, 2002) and the 15 "Global Challenges" in the annual State of the Future reports by Jerome Glenn and Theodore J. Gordon (American Council for the United Nations University, Washington).
16. E.L. Boyer, Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate (Special Report), Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Princeton NJ, 1990. Proposes a "new vision of scholarship" based on four overlapping functions: the traditional (brickmaking) "scholarship of discovery," the scholarship of integration, the scholarship of application, and the scholarship of teaching; "what we urgently need today is (this) more inclusive view."
17. In: Clark M.E., and Wawrytko S.A. (Eds). Rethinking the Curriculum: Toward an Integrated, Interdisciplinary College Education (1990), Greenwood Press, Westport, CT Derived from a 1989 conference in San Diego; includes a keynote address by Ernest L. Boyer proposing a core curriculum based on human commonalities
18. Ramos J. Global futures studies: evolving foundations of a meta-discourse. Futures 37 (2005) 1179-1184 This global survey of futures studies found 300 classes in 50 locations. It is a small step forward, but needs to be placed in a broader time/space context that relates "futures studies" to other similar courses and programs without the "f-word," and considers earlier surveys, e.g., in the early 1970s, H. Wentworth Eldredge of Dartmouth College estimated "some 350 to 400 futures courses being taught in North America"
19. See. In: Toffler A. (Ed). Learning for Tomorrow: The Role of the Future in Education (1974), Vintage Books, New York 348
20. H. Cleveland, in: H. Cleveland, W.T. Anderson (Eds.), Futures Special Issue, The Global Century 31 (9/10), 1999.
21. Kerr C. Higher Education Cannot Escape History: Issues for the Twenty-first Century (1994), SUNY Press, Albany, NY The former Chancellor of the University of California system and head of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education proposes a curriculum centered on "general culture" and 21st century great issues, to help students "think horizontally as well as vertically." This should certainly count as "futures studies"
22. In: Jacobson R. (Ed). Information Design (1999), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
23. Wurman R.S. Understanding Healthcare (2004), TOP, Newport, RI A "visual encyclopedia" for the average literate person, by one of the leaders in information design
24. Dror Y. The Capacity to Govern: A Report to the Club of Rome (2001), Frank Cass, London and Portland, OR (English language edition of 1994 book)
25. In: Kochen M. (Ed). Information for Action: From Knowledge to Wisdom (1975), Academic Press, New York Essays on the World Brain idea of H.G. Wells