Minority rules: Scientists discover tipping point for the sp

[kiwi]

Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society. The scientists, who are members of the Social Cognitive Networks Academic Research Center (SCNARC) at Rensselaer, used computational and analytical methods to discover the tipping point where a minority belief becomes the majority opinion. The finding has implications for the study and influence of societal interactions ranging from the spread of innovations to the movement of political ideals.

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-07-min ... ideas.html

[jjohnson]

An interesting article, regarding spread of opinions. While science is not exactly made up of opinions, the standard model (in various scientific disciplines; we usually think of physics) is a widely held paradigm, and the EU is a minority held paradigm. What are the implications?

Be very cautious about assuming that all the EU paradigm holders have to do is convince 11% of the mainstream physicists that the EU ideas are correct and the EU will swiftly take over. The models used in the Renssalaer model do not seem [to me] to be particularly apropos the existing conditions in our dialog with Larger Science:

To reach their conclusion, the scientists developed computer models of various types of social networks. One of the networks had each person connect to every other person in the network. The second model included certain individuals who were connected to a large number of people, making them opinion hubs or leaders. The final model gave every person in the model roughly the same number of connections. The initial state of each of the models was a sea of traditional-view holders. Each of these individuals held a view, but were also, importantly, open minded to other views.

We are not only not all individually connected with "all of them", many of "them" are not "open minded to other views", and a minority of them have already decided quite strongly, and brook no opposition, that the EU ideas are promulgated by pseudo-science wackos who wouldn't know a gravity wave if it tickled their LIGO. So, if they have neither the inclination nor take the time to listen to or read EU views and websites, and we do not have connections with enough of them to convince even 5% to take seriously the ideas we present, much less convince them of it in the face of their fellow workers' and leaders' opposition to such views, it seems improbable at best that, in the Renssalaer model, we have a chance of a snowball in hell of sweeping to a dominant position.

That said, be not faint of heart. We can change the rules and the model, working in real life, as it were. We can tailor our ideas so that they stick; we can contact other elements of society, including dissident scientists, print and web media, and circulate ideas which attract a very wide audience of lay people who in turn might start asking some serious questions. We can help direct the modes of change, if we know what we are doing and how to do it. The effort seems worthwhile enough to me.

Jim