TREASURES

OF

WORLD ART

o China

Noble character

For over three thousand years, Chinese artists have foundinspiration in transforming mere writing into graphic art. In China,calligraphy means more than simply beautiful writing; for theChinese it Is one of the highest forms of artistic expression. Bythe pressure of the brush and a delicate interplay of various typesof movement and feeling the artist creates a world of sensitivebeauty. The art of calligraphy has been practised on bone, stone,wood and bronze, and later on silk and paper and has evolved,not only with the materials used, but also with the evolution ofthought. Right, two stanzas of a poem: "The moon, like a semi¬circular disc of jade... slowly sinks below the horizon." It isshown here in the style of the great calligrapher Ho Shao-chi(1799-1873). Above, enlargement of the Chinese character"Chien", (meaning gradually) taken from the top of the left handcolumn, right. These illustrations are reproduced from the book"La Calligraphie Chinoise, un Art à Quatre Dimensions", by LeonLong-yien Chang, just published by "Le Club Français du Livre"(see Bookshelf page 33). Former President of the Chinese Aca¬demy of Arts and Crafts and Fellow of the International Instituteof Arts and Letters, Switzerland, Leon L.Y. Chang Is himself oneof the great calligraphers of today.

CourierAPRIL 1971

24TH YEAR

PUBLISHED I IM 13 EDITIONS

English JapaneseFrench Italian

Spanish HindiRussian Tamil

German Hebrew

Arabic Persian

U.S.A.

Published monthly by UNESCO

The United Nations,Educational, Scientific

and Cultural Organization

Sales and Distribution Offices

Unesco, Place de Fontenoy, Paris-7e

Annual subscription rates : £1 stg. ; $4.00(Canada); 12 French francs or equivalent;2 years: £1.80 stg.; 22 F. Single copies: 10pstg.; 40 cents; 1.20 F.

The UNESCO COURIER is published monthly, exceptin August and September when it is bi-monthly (11 issues ayear) in English, French, Spanish, Russian, German. Arabic,Japanese, Italian, Hindi, Tamil, Hebrew and Persian. In theUnited Kingdom it is distributed by H.M. Stationery Office,P.O. Box 569, London, S.E.I.

Individual articles and photographs not copyrighted maybe reprinted providing the credit line reads "Reprinted fromthe UNESCO COURIER", plus date of issue, and threevoucher copies are sent to the editor. Signed articles re¬printed must bear author's name. Non-copyright photoswill be supplied on request Unsolicited manuscripts cannotbe returned unless accompanied by an internationalreply coupon covering postage. Signed articles express theopinions of the authors and do not necessarily representthe opinions of UNESCO or those of the editors of theUNESCO COURIER.

The Unesco Courier is Indexed monthly in The Read¬ers' Guide to Periodical Literature, published byH. W. Wilson Co., New York, and in Current Con¬

tents - Education, Philadelphia. U.S.A.

Editorial Office

Unesco, Place de Fontenoy, Paris-7". France

Editor-in-Chief

Sandy Koffler

Assistant Editor-in-Chief

René Caloz

Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief

Lucio Attinelli

Managing Editors

English Edition: Ronald Fenton (Paris)French Edition: Jane Albert Hesse (Paris)Spanish Edition: Francisco Fernández-Santos (Paris)Russian Edition : Georgi Stetsenko (Paris)German Edition: Hans Rieben (Berne)Arabic Edition: Abdel Moneirn El Sawi (Cairo)Japanese Edition: Hitoshi Taniguchi (Tokyo)

Maria Remiddi (Rome)Kartar Singh Duggal (Delhi)N.D. Sundaravadivelu (Madras)Alexander Peli (Jerusalem)Fereydoun Ardalan (Teheran)

Italian

Hindi

Tamil

Hebrew

Persian

Edition

Edition

Edition

Edition

Edition

Assistant Editors

English Edition: Howard BrabynFrench Edition : Nino Frank

Spanish Edition: Jorge Enrique Adoum

Photo Editor: Olga Rodel

Layout and Design: Robert JacqueminAll correspondence should be addressed to the Edltor-ln-Chlel

Page

4 WHAT FUTURE FOR FUTUROLOGY?

by François Le Lionnais

9 BREAKTHROUGH TO TOMORROW

by Robert Jungk

10 THE NARROWING GAPBETWEEN DISCOVERY AND APPLICATION

12 THINK TANKS'AND WORKSHOPS OF THE FUTURE'

16 FUTURESCAPES OF THE 21st CENTURY

When teenagers and architects see eye to eye

22 A SOVIET SCIENTIST LOOKS AT FUTUROLOGY

by Igor V. Bestuzhev-Lada

29 PONDERING THE IMPONDERABLE

by Pierre Piganiol

33 UNESCO NEWSROOM

34 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

2 TREASURES OF WORLD ART

Noble Character (China)

Cover

As a method of forecasting the futureand a guide for present-day planning,futurology offers enormous possibilitiesand vistas. But it is not surprising that itsaims, methods and prospects have arousedso much discussion and controversy."What future for futurology?". The answer,though positive, is not a simple oneas this issue tries to show.

f- Based on a drawing by E. Ragazzinio © Civilité délie Macchine, Rome

3

5*

£>v°

WHAT FUTURE

FOR

FUTUROLOGY ?by François Le Lionnais

4

FRANÇOIS LE LIONNAIS, French science consultant, mathematician andengineer, is president of the French Science Writers' Association. A memberof the Advisory Committee on Scientific Language of the Académiedes Sciences, in Pans, he is scientific adviser to the French Institute ofAdvanced Scientific Studies, the Institute of Cell Pathology, the FrenchRadio and Television Network, and the French National Commission forUnesco. A former head of Unesco's Division of Teaching and Disseminationof Science, he is known as a speaker and writer on scientific matters,particularly of science popularization. Among his books on science are'Les Grands Courants de la Pensée Mathématique" (Main Trends in Mathe¬matical Thought), Blanchard, Paris 1962; "La Science au XX' Siècle" (ScienceIn the 20th Century), Editions du Seuil, Pans 1951. and "Le Temps", Delpire,Paris, 1959, published in English as "Time", by Orion Press, New York, 1960.Mr. Le Lionnais acted as scientific consultant in the preparation of this issue.

^^ cybernetics and thecomputer, the population explosionand pollution of our planet, futurologyis a topic everyone is talking about.The notion each of us forms of futu¬

rology, and especially what we expectIt to be able to do, may well indicatewhether our thinking still contains tra¬ces of a belief in magic, or whether, onthe contrary, we are fully aware of thepowers as well as the limitations ofthe methods of science.

On the one hand futurology acts asan irresistible fascination and allure¬

ment for all those who still cling tomoth-eaten yet hard-to-kill superstitionsand beliefs. On the other hand futur¬

ology invites us to cast off oursuperstitions and to replace them withless ambitious but far more reliable

methods of solving specific problems.

Strictly speaking, there can be nosuch thing as forecasting if our reason¬ing and calculations are not appliedin a clearly defined domain, that is ifthey do not operate in accordance withthe natural laws of the universe. Thisis what the scientist refers to as scien¬tific determinism which states that

everything occurs in the universe ac¬cording to natural laws and not as aresult of pure chance; that every phen-omanon has a cause, and that thesame causes produce the same effect.

Nor can one speak of carrying outtrue forecasting if one does not havethe required data and information, orif one does not know how the laws in

a particular domain actually operate.

From this it is clear that the possibi¬lities of futurology as a science aresubject to three limitations:

First, if a problpm studied by futuro¬logy deals only partially with predict-

consFrom somewhat haphazard beginnings, exploration of the future, orfuturology, has become a world-wide research movement that reflectsa broad range of scholarly and scientific interests and disciplines. Itspractitioners offer their anticipations not as certainties, but merely aspossibilities or, in some cases, probabilities. And such assessments areusually based on studies of technological and social trends and an imagin¬ative speculation on the results of scientific and technological develop¬ment. Yet even today, many of the realities of futurology are obscuredby a lack of public understanding of its aims and methods. The U.S. futuro-logist Daniel Bell, chairman of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences'"Commission on the Year 2000," has pointed out that a good deal of today'spublic interest in the future arises from the bewitchment of technology."What is bad," he writes, "is that a serious and necessary effort is in dangerof being turned into a fad, and any fad trivializes a subject and quicklywears it out. A second evil is that many more expectations are arousedthan can be fulfilled." To the question, "What future for futurology?,"this issue of the "Unesco Courier" seeks to offer some answers that examine

with equal impartiality the possibilities 'and the limitations of this newbranch of human endeavour.

able events, that is, if the element ofchance plays a certain part, it is self-evident that the reliability of any fore¬cast will be proportional to the degreeof chance or uncertainty involved.

Second, even assuming that chanceplays absolutely no part in the ques¬tion under examination, there is still no

guarantee that the futurologist's pre¬diction will be right. One has tomake sure that all the relevant infor¬

mation and data or at least the most

important data have been securedand taken into account.

Third, even if chance plays no partand all the relevant data have been

secured, it is still not enough. Thefuturologist must also be familiar withthe laws that govern the relationshipbetween the various factors involved in

the problem. While he need not ne¬cessarily know every single law hemust at least know the most Impor¬tant ones and be sure that if any law isneglected It is only a secondary one.

If these three conditions are met, the

futurologist will be able to make fore¬casts and predictions that are valid,for despite certain unknowns, they willhave an excellent chance of comingtrue.

But can such severe limitations asthe three indicated above all be met ina reliable manner? This is the real

crux of the problem of the validity offuturology. I think one can say,however, that science has alreadygiven us the answer, and that answeris a definite "Yes," even if only incertain cases.

The classic example of this is cer¬tainly celestial mechanics. The Heav¬ens do, in fact, offer us many testi

monies of the achievements of "astro¬

nomical futurology" with predictions ofthe exact duration of each day of theyear at every point on the globe, themovements of the tides, the eclipsesof the sun and the moon, the move¬ments of the stars and other heavenlybodies such as the comets (1).

But the Heavens are also a goodexample for reminding us not to losesight of the important rules referredto above.

The movements of the planet Uranuscan be predicted correctly only witha knowledge of the existence and cha¬racteristics of a more distant planet,namely, Neptune. The movements ofthe planet Mercury can be predictedproperly and precisely only by replac¬ing Newton's law of gravitation by theEinstein-Schwarzschild law of gravita¬tion. Neptune was discovered by Le-verrier when,- in connexion with Ura¬nus, he observed the difference be¬

tween prediction, and fact while tryingnot to call into question Newton's lawof gravitation.

In the case of Mercury, it was, onthe contrary, Newton's law which hadto be called into question and replacedby a universal law In order to explainthe difference between prediction andfact without having to postulate theexistence of another planet. Beyondthe solar system the predictions which

(1) Halley's Comet Is perhaps the mostfamous historical example. In 1682 the En¬glish astronomer, Edmund Halley, observedthe comet and after calculating its orbit wasable to predict its return with an accuracythat astounded his contemporaries. Thecomet did In fact return as he foretold at the

beginning of 1759, seventeen years after Hal-ley's death.

one can make regarding stars otherthan the sun and concerning galaxiesother than our Milky Way may befruitful, but they are nonetheless atthe mercy of the discovery of hithertounknown phenomena; in recent years,astronomy has been rich in discoveriesof this kind, among which may be men¬tioned radio sources, quasars, pulsarsand neutron stars.

What we have just said in connexionwith astronomy could and must be ex¬tended to the whole future of funda¬

mental research In physics. Scientistshave known, for several centuries, ofthe existence of gravitational forces,both electrical and magnetic (particu¬larly In their earthly form, gravity) andthey have succeeded In understandingtheir ' mechanisms sufficiently to beable to apply them in any number ofways.

Nuclear forces came to light at theend of the 19th century and otherforces (curiously named, of weak inter¬action) in the middle of the 20th cen¬tury. Before their discovery, whowould have been able to forecast the

appearance of these forces in the fieldof physics and on what evidencewould such a prediction have beenbased? Moreover, how could anyonehave predicted not merely the exis¬tence of these forces but the technical

uses to which they could be put andthe economic, social and politicalconsequences of such uses?

A few years ago, scientists thoughtthey had discovered a fifth force, dif¬ferent from the other four. This now plies in the graveyard of stillborn theo- nries and hypotheses. But who cansay that another "fifth force" will notsee the light of day in the more or

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

WHAT FUTURE FOR FUTUROLOGY? (Continued)

The future of the past is in the future

The future of the present is in the past

The future of the future is in the present

less distant future ? Not a singlereliable futurologist would dare tomake such an assertion. But should

such a day arrive, mankind's wholeenonomic, social, political and culturalfuture might perhaps be completelyupset, as it is beginning to be by theuse of nuclear forces.

In short, futurology must give upabsolutely any pretensions at predic¬tions as soon as it ¡s a question offundamental research aimed at cross¬

ing a frontier beyond which stretchescompletely unknown territory. Onecannot, at the same time, know and

not know. The illusion to the contrarycomes (and we should not be led as¬tray by the error of those who arevictims of it) from the application of aphilosophy, or intuition, or unscien¬tific convictions, to a field whichscience regards as uncharted whe¬ther temporarily or for all time andwhich it is trying, or perhaps will try,to explore. Such intuitions and con¬victions may merit our respect, but anyfuturology worthy of the name shouldnot take them into account.

I

8

T is perhaps permissibleto tone down the severity of this judg¬ment when an enclave of scientific

ignorance is surrounded on all sides bywell charted territory. This is the case,for example, in biological researchaimed at filling the gap separating ourknowledge of living beings and ofliving cells from our knowledge ofthe biochemistry and biophysics of themolecules of which living matter isformed. It is permissible to supposethat this gap will be filled fairly soon.But here again, it should be carefullynoted that:

this is only a working hypothesisit could be described as a "hopeful"hypothesis because

there is no guarantee that the appa¬rently small distance still to be cover¬ed does not, in fact, conceal enormous

difficulties, and consequently

the estimate of the time needed is

more of a guess than an accurate fore¬cast.

If we move on from considerations

of pure research to applied researchand techniques, and then to their prac¬tical consequences, we come upagainst difficulties that are sometimescomparable, but which are also some¬times easier to overcome. In general,the more fundamental the discovery,the more profound and radical it is, themore it is abstract and the less its

consequences are immediately fore¬seeable.

How could Apollonius of Perga andhis contemporaries have imagined, inthe third century B.C., that geometricstudy of the ellipse would enableKepler, in the 17th century, to providea model of the movements of the

planets, a model which would be usedto guide navigators at night and wouldtransform the character of trans¬

atlantic trade in the following century?How could the British mathematician

P.A. MacMahon have foreseen that an

amusing arithmetical problem whichfascinated him at the beginning of the20th century the study of the so-called Greco-Latin squares, that is tosay, squares containing numbers ar¬ranged in a certain way would pro¬vide agriculture with a means ofincreasing the production of cerealsby having recourse to the laws ofprobability? (applying these laws in¬telligently to all the factors thatdetermine the growth of cropshumidity, winds, rainfall, sunshine, thenature of soils, plant genetics, botany,the chemical make-up of fertilizers,etc.)

It would, of course, be easy to sup¬ply many more examples of this kind.But many others could equally befound which would show how intelli¬

gent and imaginative persons (oftenafter having rid themselves of a para¬lyzing conformism) have been able toanticipate the use to which a discov¬ery of pure science would be put.

This brings us now, somewhatabruptly perhaps, to the sector ofhuman affairs where, if we discount

elements of chance, the prospects offuturology are indeed enormous.

The obstacles to be overcome are

admittedly very great but they are of afar less radical nature. The number

of factors that must be taken into

account is often discouragingly high,and many of these factors are very dif¬ficult to measure accurately. In addi¬tion they are difficult to measure fastenough to be able to forecast events...before they actually occur.

Furthermore, although in many caseswe already know the economic,sociological and psychological lawsthat govern human behaviour, thisknowledge is still quite primitive andcan lead to monumental errors.

There is no shortage of historiansto show (after the event of course)that it would have been possible topredict the French Revolution of 1789

(though not the taking of the Bastilleon July 14), or the economic and finan¬cial crash of 1929 which began in theUnited States and then spread allover the world, or the student protestsof May 1968. But supposing that, asPascal wrote, if Cleopatra's nose

had not been so long, the entirehistory of the world would have beenchanged, who, at that time (or evento-day) would have had at his disposalmethods sophisticated enough to fore¬cast what would have happened?

There is, finally, one other obstacleto the effectiveness of futurology inthis field where it should theoreticallybe particularly effective. This is thefact, which weighs like original sin onall the human sciences, that it is car¬

ried out by men and is very largelyconcerned with human activities. The

futurologist is both judge and jury.Even if he succeeds in. eliminating anyulterior motives or bad faith, it is wellnigh impossible for him to rid himselfof the convictions, opinions and pre¬judices inculcated in him by his edu¬cation, the social milieu from which

he sprang or which he frequents, hisexperience and his reading, not all ofwhich recessarily tend to foster hisobjectivity. These are so many gar¬ments of Nessus that he is hard put toleave In the cloakroom.

FOR proof of this, it is

enough to read all the books andarticles which have been written on

the subject in the last twenty years.There is scarcely one that does notreveal in some way or other the poli¬tical or religious ideas of its author,his nationality, or at least his adher¬ence to a group of countries livingunder the same form of governmentor with the same ideology, whattype of school or university educationhe had, in short, a certain view of the

world which is very likely to colour histhinking.

In the natural sciences, it is virtuallyimpossible to make such deductionsabout an author. It is true, the optimistcan be distinguished from the pessi¬mist, the timorous mind from the bold,but this has no repercussions on theobjectivity of results obtained and issoon obliterated by the evidence of thefacts.

Can a change in futurology whichwould immunize it from these imper¬fections be foreseen? Is it possible toforecast the future of a science andtechnique of the future? Provided thatno time limit is set it seems reasonable

to reply in the affirmative. For confir¬mation of this, we have only to notethe studies made in the space of a fewyears by all those old branches ofphilosophy which now claim, and jus¬tifiably so, the title of the "HumanSciences" and which every day areapproaching the status of "exactsciences".

It is only if we renounce all attemptsat predicting discoveries ensuing fromabsolutely fundamental research, andonly if we systematically ban all mis¬representations engendered by super¬stitions, passions or special interests,that the chrysalis will one day emergeas a beautiful butterfly.

ARCOLOGY

OR DIGGING UP

THE FUTURE

The brainchild of American architect Paolo Soleri is this gleaming model of a town of the future.Like a double pyramid it would stand 3,500 feet (over half a mile) high and house170,000 people. Utility inlets, sewers and elevators would be installed in the giant pillars.Each living unit would be about 22 feet high, 35 feet wide and 40 to 60 feet deep, and withinit each individual would be free to design the sort of home he wanted. Soleri calls his style"arcology", a word coined from the marriage of architecture and ecology, since his aim isto compact rather than expand the city and leave most of the countryside for man's enjoyment.He believes the future will provide the new materials that would make his giant structurestechnologically feasible.

7

The prospects for thebiological manipulationof man are both

exciting and frighteningand the problem ofresponsibility for theuses of science maybecome acute in the

field of genetics beforethe year 2000. Left,students from a

New York high schoolwalk through thismodel structure of

a gene designed topromote betterunderstanding of basicmolecular, genetic andchemical aspects of life.The model representsa section of a

chromosome

(enlarged300,000 times) at thestage when itduplicates itselfin accordance with its

hereditary code.

Photo © Upjohn Co., Kalamazoo, USA. Model designed by Will Burtln

by Robert Jungk

BREAKTHROUGH

TO

TOMORROW

THERE has been a meteoric

rise in the popularity of futurologyamong the public. But sudden, world¬wide popularity of this kind Is oftenbased on over-simplification or misun¬derstanding of the facts, and this istrue of futurology.

People expect so much from futur¬ology. They seem to imagine that itcan work scientific "miracles" and

come up with infallible remedies forthe crises that convulse the modern

world. Seizing on futurology, popularimagination has raised some of thepioneer "futurists" to the rank of pro¬phets a role which most of them areloath to accept.

Predictably, the public's misconcep¬tions about futurology have arousedfar more expectations than can be ful¬filled. Demands are made not only forclear-cut programmes covering thedecades ahead, but also for precisetechniques concerning the forecasting,control and direction of events that

would enable man to forge his future,to stem, as it were, the course ofhistory in the way he has dammed tor¬rential rivers and harnessed them to

his needs.

ROBERT JUNGK is a leading figure in thefield of futurology. He founded the Institutefor Future Research in Vienna, was co-foun¬der of the Association for the Study ofProblems of the Future, in Hamburg, andis on the Board of the Future ResearchCentre in West Berlin. He is the author of

several books on futurology including "To¬morrow is Already Here" (1953), 'Brighterthan a Thousand Suns" (1958), "Children ofthe Ashes" (1961) and "The Big Machine"(1969). With lohan Gattung he edited "Man¬kind 2000" (1969) based on the First Inter¬national Future Research Conference, heldin Oslo in 1967, and on the ideas and aimsof a project called "Mankind 2000" whichhe initiated in 1964. Dr. Jungk at presentteaches at the Technical University in WestBerlin and at the Otto Suhr Institute of the

Free University of West Berlin.

It is hardly surprising that after somany decades of unrest people nowa¬days seek security and prefer certain¬ties to surprises. And this attitude iseven more understandable In view of

the dangers that have arisen from thepopulation explosion, famine, the des¬truction of the environment and the

threat of war waged with nuclear,chemical or biological weapons.

But impatience and haste are un¬reliable counsellors; they lead peopleto expect too much, too soon. Soone cannot rule out the possibilitythat futurology may one day beswamped by the stampede of thosewho are impatient to reach solidground, and thus founder like a hastilybuilt raft which capsizes through over¬loading.

Whoever is concerned with the

future of research into the future is

obliged to consider the possibility of a"shipwreck" of this kind now thatopinion has swung from a prematurecraze for futurology to a no less pre¬mature condemnation.

Futurology is nowadays increasinglyattacked by critics who point to errorsIn its forecasts and predictions. Arecent example is the study by KeithPavitt (of the Scientific Affairs Directo¬rate of the Organization for EconomicCo-operation and Development, inParis) and Claude Mestre (FrenchMinistry of Transport) which empha¬tically contests the reliability of severalwell-established methods of technolo¬

gical forecasting.

The report is so pessimistic thatmany persons on reading it mightwell conclude that "experimental long-term forecasting" has been an utterfailure from start to finish, and shouldbe abandoned without delay as a cost¬ly enterprise whose conclusions merelyserve to mislead us.

But this would be a disastrous mis¬

take. The systematic scrutiny andexploration of the future has becomean imperative need in the present eraof revolutionary changes in scienceand technology.

In the view of the French philoso¬pher and educator, Gaston Berger,the need for a scientific and specula¬tive concern with the future ¡s a direct

consequence of the unprecedentedacceleration of change In the presentage.

So long as changes were spread outover long periods of time, man couldbe compared to someone walkingalong a dark road. All he needed tomake his way in reasonable safetywere his eyes. Then came the compa¬ratively faster tempo of the horse-drawn carnage, and torches or lanternswere needed to light the road forsome distance ahead. When the

speed of the automobile was reached,powerful headlights were required toprevent collisions.

Since Gaston Berger's death in 1960(he was killed in a road accident) thepace has increased to the point wheretoday's supersonic aircraft would beunable to operate safely without thehelp of complex electronic guidancesystems.

So instead of disparaging or doingaway with techniques that would helpto smooth out our progress from thepresent to the future, we should en¬deavour to improve them. But we shallbe unable to light the way aheadmerely by boosting the power of ourtraditional "lamps". The developmentof techniques for forecasting the futurewill demand feats of ingenuity compa- nrabie with those that have carried us H

from automobile headlights to radar,and beyond that to the beams of lasersthat now enable us to probe and

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

BREAKTHROUGH TO TOMORROW (Continued)

10

explore greater distances than everbefore.

Several thousands of specialists,working in almost every country ofthe world, are already developing tech¬niques for lighting up at short, me¬dium and long-range distances theroad that lies ahead. This explorationis becoming a new dimension of oursociety and an indispensable conditionfor its survival and development.

In nearly every case, the work ofthese specialists relates to practicalproblems and projects. They advisegovernments, city authorities and In¬dustry They are asked for forecastson trends in population growth andthe availability of food supplies. Theyare consulted on developments intechnology, new materials, transport,production methods and trade. Whatthey describe are "possible futuretrends" in fields ranging from worldpolitics down to changes in the struc¬ture of the family, and from the ex¬ploration of outer space to the studyof man's "Inner space" his mind orhis spiritual nature.

Yet only a minute part of the intel¬lectual and material resources devoted

to futurology Is used for a criticalappraisal of the work it accomplishesor for a comparative study of its dif¬ferent methods with the aim of devel¬

oping and improving them.

Thus far, almost no theoretical re¬search has been done on futurologyitself. New perspectives are revealedonly as by-products of practical fore¬casting. This is one of the weakness¬es of the new science of futurology.It scrutinizes the heavens and the

earth, but looks at itself all too seldom.

The origins of modern futurologyresearch go back to the latter partof World War II, when it was firsttaken up seriously as an auxiliaryscience to military strategy, on whichIt came to exert some influence.

The end of 1945 saw the launchingof the Rand (abbreviation for Researchand Development) project, comprisinga working group of physicists andtechnologists and operating within aprivate aircraft construction company.From this group came the Rànd Cor¬poration, established In 1948 by theFord Foundation and registered in theState of California as an independentnon-profit-making enterprise.

In retrospect, the historical sig¬nificance of this undertaking hasbecome clear, not only through thework accomplished by Rand, butbecause it was a striking "socialinnovation". It was, in reality, theprototype of a new type of IntellectualInstitution, the so-called "think fac¬tory", and as such it became the modelfor many similar establishments ingovernment and industry.

The most striking innovation in the"Think Factories", and their smaller

Photo Unesco-Lesage

lames Watt took out a patent for his steam engine in 1769,but it was not until 56 years later that George Stephenson'sfamous locomotive "Rocket" pulled the world's first railwaypassengers from Stockton to Darlington, in England.Rendered obsolete by the development of diesel andelectric traction, the steam locomotive, the driving forcebehind the industrial revolution, is fast disappearing,like the "iron horse" which has been put out to grass, above.In the modern world, the pace of change is quickeningand the interval between scientific discovery and largescale application is shortening dramatically. This changeof pace is vividly illustrated in the diagram below whichshows the development periods of eleven major discoveriesmade between the early 18th and mid-20th centuries.Our diagram is based on one published in "The Futureof the Future", by John McHale.

The

narrowing gapbetween

discoveryand

application

Solar Battery 1953-1955 2 YEARS

Transistor 1948*1951

Television 1922.

Radar 19254^1940

X-Ray tubes i895^^FÍ9i3

Vacuum tube 1884

Radio 1867

Telephone 1820

Electric motor 1821

Photography 1727.

3 YEARS

10 YEARS

12 YEARS

15 YEARS

18 YEARS

31 YEARS

35 YEARS

56 YEARS

65 YEARS

112 YEARS

Interval between scientific discoveries and their application

CONTINUEO PAGE 12

It took 112 years from the discovery of the principles of photography to develop its practical application, yet only twoyears to complete the same process with the solar battery. So fast is the pace of development nowadays that thepractical results of basic research are upon us before we have had time to assess their desirability or consider theirfuture implications. It is here that the futurologist, by extrapolation of trends, can give a breathing space in whichto reflect The first practical prototype laser was developed in 1960 by Dr T. H. Maiman; it is already being usedin fields requiring great precision such as eye surgery, the control of machines, the machining of very hard materials,and ultra-accurate measurement. The use of lasers as communications channels, including inter-planetarycommunications, offers great promise. Below, part of the French designed reflector placed on the moon by theSoviet Luna 17 to bounce back beams emitted by an earth- based laser to enable scientists to measure the distanceof the moon from the earth at a given moment with pinpoint accuracy.

BREAKTHROUGH TO TOMORROW (Continued)

Three-pronged shape of things to come

versions, the "Think Tanks," was theirworking methods. Whereas In uni¬versities, prior to 1950, one rarelyfound group work going on betweenthe various science faculties, in theRand Corporation interdisciplinaryteams were quickly set up in whichphysicists and technicians were soonjoined by mathematicians, geo¬graphers, historians, economists,sociologists, specialists in politics andfinally, ethnologists and psychologists.

An outstanding feature of theseworking groups was the easy inform¬ality with which opinions were ex¬changed, criticism expressed and newhypotheses or concepts developed.Many researchers were attracted bythis relaxed and Intellectually stimul¬ating atmosphere which contrastedfavourably in many ways with thenice formal and monotonous character

of university life.

Most of the methods used in system¬atic forecasting which were accepted

in the 1950s and 1960s, but which to¬day are targets of growing criticism,were first developed In the American"Analytic Institutes" (a title theythemselves prefer to the journalistictag "Think Factories"). Among theseinstitutes are the Rand Corporation(already mentioned), IDA (Institute forDefense Analysis), RAC (ResearchAnalysis Corporation), SDC (SystemsDevelopment Corporation), ANSER(Analytic Services) and SRI (StanfordResearch Institute).

The hundred or so methods bywhich they seek to grasp the shapeof things to come can be consideredunder three main headings:

Intuitive forecasting

Exploratory forecasting

Normative forecasting.

Intuitive forecasting combines ex¬pertise with imagination and insight.The best known techniques It has

developed thus far are "Brainstorm¬ing" and, above all, the "Delphitechnique".

In both cases participants in apanel are asked to "invent the future",that is, to make an intuitive forecast

of future developments in specificfields (in automation, food resources,health and education, for example).Whereas in "Brainstorming" this takesplace in a group session, andeach person tries to let himselfbe freely influenced and stimulatedby the Ideas of other participants,in the "Delphi technique", specia¬lists are questioned Individually inorder to prevent them being Influenc¬ed by other participants with excep¬tionally strong personalities (or per¬suasively loud voices).

A typical Delphi experiment makesuse of from 50 to 60 specialists andis systematically organized In several"rounds", in which more and morequestions derived from the results of

THINK TANKS' AND 'WORKSHOPS

12

IANY people consider that imagination isincompatible with research. For them imagination is theantithesis of the scientific approach impossible to checkup on, elusive, and erratic. Yet if one takes the trouble

to consider the actual processes of scientific discovery, itwill be seen that the leap from the known into the unknown,from the verifiable to the conjectured, is due not to calculat¬ed judgement but to intuition, imaginativeness, and theability to project into the future.

This is clear from the remarks of many of thegreatest inventors. Naturally they follow the path of purereason up to the confines of the new and the different, but

from there on they must be guided by imagination on tonew paths and new areas of thought.

Imagination plays a special part in the exploration of thefuture. It is the only force capable of bursting the bondsof the "prison of time" in which we are all incarcerated.

We are all, even geniuses in the Einstein class, much moremarked by the spirit and style of our age than we arewilling to admit, and this influences our vision of futuredevelopments.

Max Iklé, the Swiss-born American futurologist, hasgiven a very apt illustration of how forecasting is con¬ditioned by the time context in which it takes place. Takingthe example of medieval man, he tried to imagine how hemight have envisaged the future. Very probably he sawit as an age in which church, cloister and clergy would playan important part in fact a kind of Middle Ages writ large.

Looking back we now know that such a surmise as to

the nature of modern times would have been not only veryincomplete, but also partly mistaken. Yet surely we are

following the same line of thought when, to take the mostfrequent example, we imagine the twenty-first century asa period of still deeper probes into the exploration of the

world and nature, and of still more powerful and precisetechnological development.

If futurology is to learn from the mistakes made byprophets of the past, it must do more than merely prolongcurrent trends or extrapolate curves. It must also attemptto extend its thinking to take in that which has never beenseen, the unheard-of and the wholly or virtually inconceiv¬able. Yet here it comes up against a paradox. For if weknew what we cannot yet know, this would fall within exist¬

ing knowledge; hence it could not be part of "things tocome" in the strict sense of the term.

There is however a broad area of the future where that

which is no longer Today, and which is not yet Tomorrow,can exist in the form of hypothesis, conjecture, or specula¬tion. Only a very few of the many ideas which springfrom this intermediate area later become a reality. Mostof them are short-lived; some of them, premature antici¬pations of the future, are allowed to "hibernate," whileothers begin in intellectual forms totally different from theirsubsequent practical application. This is the area of thefuture to which futurology should pay particular attention.Futurology should not merely assume the role of observer,but should also provide an incentive and a stimulus.

Futurology should, first of all, continue the age-oldtradition of the search for Utopia. The Utopians describedthe desirable (that which could not be attained in the worldin which it was located) by projecting "ideal states." Thiswas no more than an intellectual game for philosophers

earlier rounds are put to the par¬ticipants. The purpose is to obtainincreasingly precise data on the proba¬bility of the hypotheses advanced andwhen they might conceivably becomereality.

In this way, majority and minorityopinions are finally obtained, andthese represent an informed intuitivejudgement on probable, possible ordesirable future developments.

Questions are sent out in writtenform and replies are examined andevaluated by a central office for usein subsequent rounds of the experi¬ment. In order to reduce the lengthof this process, the Institute of theFuture, in the U.S.A., plans to set upa permanent, electronic world-wideDelphi circuit which would be connect¬ed to a central computer.

Exploratory forecasting examinesprobable future developments, using asa basis existing knowledge and trendsas well as recent scientific, techno¬

logical,, economic or social innovationsor those expected in the near future.From extrapolations based on thisdata, exploratory forecasting suggests

which trends should be reinforcedand which should be curbed.

Futurology has introduced some in¬novations here, such as the "encircl¬

ing curve", which attempts to draw acircle round the extreme possibilitiesof a technical system the maximumpossible utilization of the power of anuclear accelerator, the most rapidrnethods of transport, the brightestpossible light, and so on. Account istaken of so-called "internal" limits

set by nature and "external" limitssuch as those related to population

growth, the national product, or thesurface of the globe.

Other methods are aimed at improv¬

ing exploratory forecasting. First onthe list come "study curves" wherebypast assumptions as to future develop¬ments can be compared with thosewhich actually took place, and conclu¬sions drawn as to possible sourcesof error and margins of uncertainty.

In "contextual mapping", account istaken of the mutual interaction of

various extrapolated trends. Thismethod appears very promising, sinceit convincingly shows the mutual inter

dependence of technological andscientific evolution, and develops byexperience new ways of thought whichsubsequently accommodate social,political and psychological factors.

In exploratory forecasting a specialplace is occupied by the "morpho¬logical method" of the Swiss astro¬physicist Fritz Zwicky. The steps con¬sist of stating the problem precisely,exposing the important parameters,revealing the dimension, range, andnumber of values for each parameter,determining the number and kind ofsolutions, and finally evaluating andchoosing the preferred solution.

For example, Zwicky has shown thaton the basis of the 11 basic parame¬ters of a jet engine, 25,344 differenttypes of engine could be put on thedrawing-board. Yet some of them, forexample an underground jet engine(which could possibly be used formining), might remain for a long timeat the planning stage.

Typical of this class of studies aretoday's widely-publicized forecasts ofthe increase in world population, ofthe number of motor-cars, of the pol-

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

OF THE FUTURE'

since no one has ever envisaged the achievement of sucha state in respect of a "non-place."

Today, Utopia has acquired a new function which ismuch closer to reality. As man's awareness of himselfgrows, he believes that he is able to shape his history toa large extent, and the intellectual form taken by his aspira¬tions becomes his model for action. Today he replaces far-off dreams by a workable plan which he sees as the direct

opposite of all that he finds unsatisfactory in the present.

I HE Netherlands futurologist, Professor FredPolak, has very ably shown how concrete images of thefuture influence the present by modifying it or even givingit a new direction. What we merely anticipate or desireforms just as much part of the present as what we perceiveand know. No one concerned by changes in what existscan afford to ignore these boundary zones of reality.

People tend to think that science is centered on what

has already beon formed, described, or has already takenplace, or on what can be accurately observed or measured.But this involves setting up far too rigid a system of checks.Discoveries in recent decades, from X-rays to psycho¬analysis, from the irruption of assymmotry into mathematicsto the assault on the principle of the conservation of parity

in nuclear physics, have shown time and again that standard,accepted opinions are often no longer capable of correctlyapprehending reality because they are based on too rigidand dogmatic a conception of what reality is.

By reinstating imagination, and by associating it withresearch which can be tested and evaluated, it is possible

for futurology to open up and enlarge the way in whichthe scientist works and give him greater flexibility. Andsince it lies halfway between the two cultures of art andscience, it can overcome prejudices and obstacles on bothsides.

In "Think Tanks" or "Workshops of the Future" much fruit¬

ful collaboration has already been developed beUveensculptors and engineers, painters and computer experts,poets and naturalists, linguists and sociologists, novelistsand political scientists.

The forms assumed by these joint attempts to discern andshape things to come are highly varied. In a "brainstorming"session participants temporarily suspend their critical sense

and give free rein to the creative interplay of their imagin¬ation. An attempt can be made to discover the futurecourse of events by writing a political scenario. Simulationor gaming techniques are used to produce an idea of futuretown planning and communication problems, after whichcomplete community systems are constructed.

Starting with the idea "imagine what it would be likeif . . . . " it is frequently possible for several individuals, bypooling and adding to each other's ideas, to envisage some¬thing which is really new; through conversations, taperecordings and paperwork the future can in fact be "dis¬covered."

ROBERT JUNGK

Taken from one of a series of talks

broadcast by the InternationalUniversity of the Air.

13

BREAKTHROUGH TO TOMORROW (Continued)

The world we want tomorrow

lution of the atmosphere and of thegrowth of stockpiles of nuclear wea¬pons. Such studies can and shouldserve as "early warning systems" andthus enable us to slow down certain

dangerous trends or to speed up othermore positive developments. Already,with the help of computers and modernmathematical methods, the researchtechniques used for many years bypolitical economists and demographershave been vastly improved.

More detailed studies are now beingmade of the interactions between nu¬

merous recent developments in tech¬nology. A typical example is the in¬vestigation of possible effects of thefurther development of means ofcommunication (telephone, television,"picturephone", computer links toevery home, and so on). The possiblepsychological development and the

new aspirations and values of futuregenerations are questions that havestill to be explored.

Such are the kind of ¡mages of thefuture that exploratory forecastingseeks to project, taking into accountmany different factors which are diffi¬cult to determine since they are farmore varied and contradictory thanthey were even a few years ago.

Normative forecasting, anothergroup of methods, is now comingto the fore. Here advantage is takenof a criticism which has always beenlevelled at attempts to forecast thefuture. It is argued that intrinsic inany forecast is either the incitementto act in its favour or a counter-reac¬

tion against it. In other words, sincea forecast is heard by men ready toact, it carries within It the seeds either

14

FUTUROLOGY AND THE SEARCH

FOR PEACE

I HE major aim of futurology can be to safeguard peace.It could even be said that the possibility of the world destroying itself hasprovided the most powerful impetus to the development of this new formof research. By warning us of the crises and catastrophes that threatenit aims to prevent them or to lessen their effects.

But can futurology really be effective in this field? By means of explo¬ratory forecasting it can explain dangerous trends to politicians andthe public. Anyone, for instance, who examines the comparative trends inpopulation growth and in discoveries of new sources of food over thenext twenty years will have no difficulty in deducing that between 1975and 1982 some serious crises will arise that will inevitably affect worldpolitics.

Other forecasts, for example those which point to the unequal growthin average national income in the highly industrialized and the developingareas (a twenty to one ratio), indicate a further increase in the inequalitythat already exists between the "North" and the "South" of our planet.

If we add to this the. forecast that towards the end of the 1980s the

population of the developing countries under the age of 15 will equal theentire population of the industrialized countries, then the warning signalis plain for all to see.

The warning role played by futurology should not be underestimated.It has an increasing effect upon politics, but, paradoxically, is likely to harmits own reputation with the public. The latter might indeed be inclined toscoff if the catastrophes predicted by the "pessimists" fail to materialize.Not everyone will want to admit that disasters were avoided preciselybecause futurology's "radar" picked them up in time.

Futurology can play another, and in the long run perhaps more important,part in the search for peace: it can draw up the requirements for futurepeace on a broad basis and in great detail. Work along these lines inclu¬des not only the studies on "models for world order" undertaken in the

U.S.S.R., India, Japan, Uganda, Chile and the Fed. Rep. of Germany, butalso the many studies of the Pugwash movement, founded by Albert Ein¬stein and Bertrand Russell, which seek to develop a host of ideas for futurepeaceful co-operation between different peoples and ideologies.

ROBERT JUNGK

of its destruction or its realization. In

a system of exploring the future whichdoes not claim to be an "objective"science, but a "science of action",such criticism is not contested; on thecontrary, it is admitted and exploitedin a positive way.

The trend at the present time isconsciously to shape the future bydrawing up standards and objectives.The viewpoint of Olaf Helmer, a U.S.futurologist, who with his associatesat the Rand Corporation developed theDelphi method of forecasting, basedon the polling of a series of expertpanels, is characteristic of this newattitude to moulding the future.

"The fatalistic concept of an unfore¬seeable and unavoidable future", hestates, "is being progressively aban¬doned. We are beginning to realizethat there are a great number of pos¬sible futures, and that appropriateaction can Influence these possibilitiesin different ways. This raises theexploration of things to come and theattempts to influence them into realmsof great social responsibility. If wewish to assume this responsibility wemust cease to be onlookers at the

spectacle of the world's history, andmust influence history with the inten¬tion of shaping the future."

AM >N example of this kind of

normative behaviour was the American

project for a manned lunar landing.Years before the scientific and technic¬

al capability for a successful flight wassufficiently developed, a project wasbegun and its execution "forecast" fora specific date. A target was set, and"future history was made".

Normative forecasting has developedmethods for weighing all possibleobjectives against each other asimpartially as possible, and for estab¬lishing priorities. Its range includesmodern theories on decision-making.A series of methods has been devised

which, using a kind of reverse-planningtechnique, starts from the future objec¬tive and works back to the present; thenecessary intermediate stages arethus determined and an attempt madeto plot the best possible course bet¬ween Tomorrow and Today.

The "Relevance Tree" method has

proved to be particularly satisfactory.Starting from the fixed objective, thetop of the tree, and working down¬wards, alternative approaches areassessed and weighed against eachother. Originally developed in the mili¬tary field, this method has signallyproved its worth elsewhere, for exam¬ple in the evolution of biology and

As the world tumbles alongat its precipitous paceof technological change,futurologist and non-futurologistalike need a moment for calm

reflection and meditation.

This "classical" thinker of yore,pondering the "machine"alongside him, seems to beasking what it all meansand where it is all leading us?

Photo R. Dix © Hanns Reich Verlag, Munich

medicine. It highlights for decisionmakers what decisions they shouldtake and when, and what finance theyshould inject into specific projects.

Simulation techniques occupy a spe¬cial place among normative methods.An attempt is made to envisage pos¬sible conflicts and possible futuredevelopments which have been over¬looked.

Recently, a new trend in futurologyhas gained ground in every country.It makes men and women of everyrace and from every sector of thesocial system the focal point of itsactivities, and seeks to explore a broadrange of their hopes and aspirations

biological, psychological, politicaland social.

Throughout Europe, futurologistssuch as Bertrand de Jouvenel (France),Dennis Gabor (U.K.), Ugo Spirito

(Italy), Johan Galtung (Norway), A.Sörensen (Denmark), Fred L. Polak(Netherlands), Ossip K. Flechtheim(Fed. Rep. of Germany), Igor Bestuz-hev-Lada (U.S.S.R.), Radovan Richta(Czechoslovakia), A. Apostel (Roma¬nia), Andrzen Sicinski (Poland), Edel-ing (German Democratic Republic), toname but a few of these specialists,are turning from technological forecast¬ing and scrutinizing the future withhumanistic objectives in view.

A similar trend is evident in the

United States led by futurologists suchas Kenneth E. Boulding, John Dixon,John McHale, Hasan Ozbekhan, JohnR. Piatt, Alvin Toffler, Stuart Umplebyand Arthur Waskow. And here there

is a new development, as imaginativeas it is surprising, in the direction of"open-ended anthropology".

Thus futurology Is more and more

playing a part which it had not origi¬nally foreseen for itself. It is becominga forum for the discussion of questionswhich had been pushed aside in thefever of scientific and technical pro¬gress during the last three hundredyears, questions about the meaningof life and the ethics of human coexis¬

tence.

Whoever decides that the future can

no longer be left to chance and anoften inexorable fate, has to do morethan merely "produce" and "act"; heneeds to turn again to philosophy andlook ahead to the "ultimate problems"so that, in tackling the immediate ones,he will have the welfare of future gene¬rations constantly in view.

Research into the future is thus parti¬cularly concerned with the problemsthat education will face in the yearsahead.

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

15

M_aB_HH^Haa_H^___H_^B_aHMBal^^B

Futurescapesof the

21st centuryWhen teenagers

and architects

see eye to eye

ä

K

Photo <D Shell. Brussels

BREAKTHROUGH TO TOMORROW (Continued)

16

The American Census Bureau esti¬

mates, for Instance, that 125 millionU.S. children will be of school

age in the year 2000. Developingcountries will have an even more

spectacular rate of increase. By theend of the 1970s, nearly four timesas many children as today in thesecountries will be attending school un¬til the age of 14. The number of uni¬versity students should rise moreslowly. Nevertheless, by 1985 it is ex¬pected to double and even treble insome countries.

The time spent in school is alsoexpected to increase. Kjell Eide, ofthe Norwegian Ministry of Education'sPlanning Department, recently carriedout for the Organization for EconomicCo-operation and Development, inParis, a "prospective analysis" of Nor¬way's education needs.

His conclusion was that school

attendance for Norwegians, before

they start work, would leap from anaverage of seven years in 1930 to anaverage of 11.5 years by the end of1970 and would average 14 years by1990. This would mean that not onlya privileged few, but all young Norwe¬gians would then be attending schooluntil the age of twenty.

However, the aim of futurology isnot only to assess the educationalproblems and possibilities of tomor¬row, but also to prepare the groundfor new teaching methods.

Robert Tschirgi, Head of the De¬partment of Academic Planning of theUniversity of California, believes thatthe computer "represents the greatestopportunity for innovation since theinvention of the printing press."

Data processing machines and pro¬grammed instruction will adapt therhythm of tuition to suit the individualpupil and will check more accurately

than a human teacher the amount of

knowledge that has been retained.Furthermore, such teaching machineswill train children to discover the facts

for themselves, to compare and toassess them.

By leaving the pupil alone at hisdesk to do his work in short, logicalstages, programmed instruction will, itis hoped, free the teacher of the fu¬ture to undertake more personalisedteaching.

But who will draw up the program¬mes? Who will make the films in which

famous scientists will record their lec¬

tures for thousands of students? Who

will produce the films and tape-record¬ings which will in part replace textbooks? Who will prepare the televisedclasses? Will a large scale "teachingindustry" develop? These are some ofthe questions of vital social signifi¬cance which the futurologists haveto consider.

Imaginative drawings in which young people fromdifferent countries portray their ideas about the cityof the future were a popular attraction at a recent"Science and Science Fiction" exhibition in Paris.

A selection is presented here and on pages 18 to 21,alongside designs for cities of the future made by adultarchitects and artists. A 14-year-old Paris schoolgirldrew the "futurescape" (right) with its pinnacled buildingstopped by spiral antennae and an airspace crammedwith satellites. The flying cities soaring over a futuristicpanorama (opposite) were conjured up by an artistfor a calendar depicting the world of tomorrow,published by an oil company in Belgium in 1962.The housing complex (below) was a project designedfor a New York site by Frank Lloyd Wright,shortly before his death in 1959.

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

Photo © Editions R. Laffnnt, Paris

From "Où Vivrons-Nous Demain ?" by Michel

Photo © Paul Almasy, Paris

In dealing with economic questions,as in any other field of forecasting,futurology needs to take a global viewand utilize the expertise and resourcesof numerous disciplines.

The trends of population growth area major factor In economic forecasting.Within the span of half a life¬time (that Is, in thirty-five years)the population of the world willprobably have doubled. This is one ofthe most important of almost all econo¬mic considerations. The production offood and clothing and the buildingof homes for an extra three thousand

million persons will gradually takepriority over all other economic prob¬lems.

Economic resources will be mobi¬

lized more and more to cope with so¬cial problems. Air and water pollu¬tion, noise, traffic congestion, the dete¬rioration in the quality of life throughthe mass "herding" and monotony of

urban living are all, in large measure,the consequences of a philosophy oflife which has laid too much stress on

economic achievement while givingscant regard to the high price that hasto be paid for it.

Economic exploration of the futurewill thus need to be more concerned

with problems of professional life andwith opportunities of employment. Inthe very near future, it will becomealmost as important to create new jobsas to manufacture goods.

The need for a fairer distribution of

jobs, large scale and properly timedvocational retraining to meet frequent¬ly changing needs, a totally differentoutlook on work, viewed as a "pos¬sibility" and no longer an "obligation,"will require economists to give spe¬cial consideration to psychology, thestudy of behaviour, and philosophy.Questions about "the meaning of life"will often be raised in the economic

sector. "Homo Economicus" is al¬

ready considered by the younger ge¬neration as a limited, even atrophiedform of man; soon he will be lookedupon as no more than a relic of history.

Exploration of the future which aimsto serve mankind needs to consider

not only those alive today ; it shouldkeep in mind the needs of cominggenerations. Futurologists will accom¬plish one of their most important tasksif they regard themselves as the"defenders of those not yet born",whose conditions of life have alreadybecome endangered by lack of fore¬sight on the part of 19th and 20thcentury man.

Even if the new efforts deployed toexplore the future achieved nothingmore than a strengthening of the feel- ^ing that we today are responsible for I /the welfare of those who will follow

us, it would by that alone have provedIts worth.

FUTURESCAPES (Continued)

"There's no place like dome" is what people may say of these cupola-shapedhouses of the future (right). Part of a project designed by the Americansculptor and architect Bernard Redek, these buildings would be constructedwith synthetic materials, suspended in mid-air on metallic arc-shapedsupports, and encircled by a network of access roads. Similar domelikestructures set between interlacing motorways figure in "The City ofthe Future" (above) visualised by a 14-year-old French girl, and also in"The World of Tomorrow" (above right) as imagined by- a young Japanese boy.In the city, below, drawn by a teenage Paris student, busy highwayscriss-cross and at one point climb upwards supported by a giant hand.Beside the hand, seven spheres represent an arrangement of atomsin a giant model symbolizing the peaceful uses of atomic energy.

'NO PLACE LIKE DOME'

Photos ß Paul Almasv. Paris

eg tri A.(0

» c cC00O i- oi« > «J

-5>K

m©P-s

Û.U-.Q

.

MILE-HIGH UNIVERSITY. This "up-ended" university campus (left), soaring skywardsfor over 1,200 metres (almost a mile) would house 30,000 students. Designed in Parisby the famous sculptor Nicolas Schöffer, it is a feature of his project for a"dynamic-space" cityhalf "working" city and half "recreation" or "fun" cityin which Schöffer alternates horizontal and vertical buildings. The flower-petalcity rising into the sky (above) is proposed by a 15-year-old French schoolgirl.Her "Daisy City" as she calls it appears to have everything except a lift to reach it:a children's paradise (with unlimited sweets), petal "neighbourhoods" forgastronomy, cinema, flowers, the forest, the sea, ski-ing, as well as a "realm ofsleep". A busy space programme is in operation at "Cape Kennedy"; alongside,an empty petal is held in reserve for still undetermined uses.

19

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

FUTURESCAPES (Continued)

Photos © Paul Almasy, Pans

MUSHROOM CITIES. Below, model of "Intrapolis", a city designed 50 years ago by theSwiss architect Walter Jonas. It consists of inter-connected, funnel-shaped structures inside

which dwellings would be placed in terraces on the sloping sides. Also reaching upwardsto the light is the "Hotel for the Year 2000, with terraces", above left, drawn by a 16-year-old

schoolboy, and the tree-like metal structure, above right, conceived as the setting for a

town by a boy aged 14. Attached to the latter drawing are tbe boy's explanations:

"To the right are the public buildings, to the left the living area, and, in between, the business

centre; the power, heating and communications elements are grouped at the top of the structure.'

RAISED TERRACES

AND

SUNKEN ISLANDS

Photo © Editions R. Laffont, Paris

-±<iM

Photo © Editions R Laffont. PansFrom "Où Vivrons-Nous Demain ?" by Michel Ragon

Photos © Paul Almasy, Pans

OCEANOPOLIS. Why not take a tip from the Aymara Indiansof Lake Titicaca, who live on floating, artificial islands made of wovenreeds, and build floating cities? The American architect William Katovolos

sees nothing bizarre in this idea and has designed a floating cityusing plastic materials, top right. If cities can be built on the sea,why not submarine cities? Commandant Cousteau has already shownthe way with his underwater houses. A 15-year-old schoolgirl envisagesa whole underwater city composed of vast, sack-like living areassuspended from a leaf-shaped surface float, above. An 11 -year-oldJapanese boy sees man the scientist dominating the underwater worldwith a complex system of aeration and exhaust pipes (right).His "oceanopolis" would be inhabited by a hardy people to whomskin-diving would be as normal as walking.

The annual solar radiation received by the earth is equivalent to about35,000 times our present yearly consumption of energy. Attempts atharnessing this vast energy source have led to the constructionof solar furnaces, distillation plants, hot water systems for housing, etc.,powered by the sun. A promising line of progress lies in the furtherdevelopment of the use of semi-conductors, such as germaniumand silicon, by means of which sunlight can be converted directlyinto electricity. Solar batteries consisting of hundreds of silicon cellshave already been used on satellites to power Instruments suchas cameras, transmitters and recording apparatus. Right, a Sovietsolar powered water distillation plant in the Kara-Kum desertbetween the Caspian and the Aral Seas.

A SOVIET

SCIENTIST

LOOKS

AT

FUTUROLOGY

by Igor V. Bestuzhev-Lada

IGOR V. BESTUZHEV-LADA, a leadingSoviet futurologist, heads the Section forSocial Forecasting of the Institute of Con¬certed Social Research (U.S.S.R. Aca¬demy of Sciences). He is also director ofthe Social Forecasting Research Instituteof the Soviet Sociological Association. Dr.Bestuzhev-Lada has published numerousbooks on futurology, including "If the WorldDisarms", "Outlines of the Future", and

"Modern Problems of Social Forecasting"(all in Russian).

V'à

Photo V. Reznikov © "Soviet Union" Magazine, U.S. S R

^g^NTIL quite recently theterm "forecasting" was usually asso¬ciated with the weather, earthquakes

and other natural processes that couldbe neither planned nor controlled.

Nowadays it Is used more and morefrequently in connexion with socialdevelopments in which planning andcontrol are Important factors: thesocial aspects of science and tech¬nology, economics, social relations,urban development, education, health

services, state organization and law,

politics, international relations, mili¬tary affairs, the development of vastexpanses of our planet and the ex¬ploration of space.

One might ask why we need to fore¬cast things that can be planned andcontrolled. The answer is that everydecision in planning and direction musthave a sound basis and offer, as far

as possible, the best chance of suc¬cess. The purpose of a forecast is toprovide relevant data, to evaluate both

the probable and the desirable results

of the project being studied, and tosuggest ways of reducing the gapbetween them.

Practical experience in many coun¬tries has shown that forecasting raisesthe efficiency of plans, programmes,projects and decision-making in gen¬eral, and this explains the extensive

growth in recent years of variousmethods of social forecasting.

But this does not mean, as is some¬

times claimed, that scientific fore¬

casting Is of recent origin. Over acentury ago, Karl Marx and FriedrichEngels demonstrated that it was pos¬sible to analyse future problems scien¬tifically. They prognosticated futuredevelopments by analysing existingtrends, and used what have now come

to be known as the systematic ap¬

proach, social modelling, socialnorms, etc. In short, their methodo¬

logy of forecasting anticipated thedemands of modern science. Nowa¬

days, the forecasting and planning ofsocial processes are taken for granted,

but in the mid-1 9th century, the workof Marx and Engels represented abold, new scientific approach.

Research into the future is nowa¬

days developing under the impetusof the scientific and technological revo¬lution and its social implications, andrecent qualitative changes in manyspheres of human activity show howimportant it is to make exhaustiveappraisals before plans are drawn upor decisions taken.

The search for solutions to press¬

ing social problems has already pro¬duced hundreds of practical methodsfor forecasting over relatively longperiods and with a comparatively highdegree of accuracy, and has led inmany countries to the appearance ofspecialized institutions and groupswhose aim is to produce realistic

social forecasts with these methods AQand to develop still more reliable ¿Utechniques.

Such forecasting is particularlynecessary and effective in countries

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

SOVIET SCIENTIST (Continued)

Spectacular results from the 'systems approach7

Photo M. Nachlnkln © "Soviet Union"Magazine, U.S.S.R.

Named after Vladimir Komarov, one ofthe first Soviet cosmonauts, this U.S.S.R.research ship is a floating océanographielaboratory and satellite trackingstation. Its unusual superstructurewedded to its traditional hull seems to

symbolize the blurring of the once rigiddemarcation between present and future.

24

with state-planned economies. A casein point is that of urban developmentin the Soviet Union where, in the pastfew years alone, over 100 new townshave sprung up in accordance with astate plan for the rational implantationof new industrial centres. Naturally,state ownership of the land facilitatesthe forecasting and carrying out ofsuch projects.

One could say that social fore¬casting is based on combinations ofseveral methods:

Opinion-gathering through polls ofvarious sectors of the population

and systematic questioning of spe¬cialists;

Advanced extrapolation, that is, theverification and analysis of datafrom direct extrapolation, usingmodern mathematical methods and

cybernetics and the complex tech¬niques of game theory, the theoryof probability, the theory of func¬tional research and the theory ofdecision-making;

Forecast modelling based on the"systems approach" (a methodwhich has already produced spec¬tacular results in the field of spaceresearch).

Two main types of forecastingmodels are used: the "exploratory"method, which aims to answer the

question: "what will happen if the pre¬sent trend in this or that field con¬

tinues unimpeded?"; and the " norma¬tive" forecasting method, where thequestion posed is "what would be thedesirable, optimal development of theprocess we are studying?"

Practical experience has shown thatshort term (1-2 years) and mediumterm (3-7 years) exploratory forecast¬ing is between 95 and 98 per cent relia¬ble. As yet this cannot be said of longterm forecasts (10-20 years or more).

However, it is not only a questionof whether a forecast eventually comesexactly true or not; more important stillis for the forecasts to raise the effi¬

ciency of programmes, projects anddecisions. Social forecasting has al¬ready shown that It can double or

even treble the profitability of an enter¬prise, reduce planned expenditures byas much as 5 to 10 per cent, andspeed up decision-making consider¬ably.

A simple example will help to de¬monstrate the practical advantages offorecasting. In a factory manufactur¬ing television sets, it Is obviously im¬portant for the planning department toknow what technological changes are

likely to be introduced in the manu¬facture of television sets within the

next few years, and which types ofsets will be most in demand.

If the management possesses thisinformation together with the resultsof market research into population

growth, changes in social structures,income levels, etc., it will be able to

concentrate production on the mostprofitable lines.

Forecasting is nowadays often spo¬ken of as a new scientific discipline

a "science of the future". But

though we are now witnessing the birthof a new science, it is not a science

of the future in general. This newdiscipline is concerned with the lawsand methods of forecasting, and todistinguish it from forecasting proper itis frequently referred to as "pro¬gnostics".

Forecasting as such, just like ana¬lysis or diagnosis, is an essential func¬tion of the sciences and in this sense

it is not a new but a vigorously dev¬eloping trend of modern scientificresearch.

Ai measure of its develop¬

ment is the fact that in 1970, 293 orga¬nizations in western Europe were

engaged in drawing up complex, long-term social forecasts, including 84 inBritain, 70 in France, 33 in the Fed.

Rep. of Germany, 22 in Italy, etc.Several dozen such organizations werealso operating in Japan. And thesefigures do not include research unitsengaged in short-term forecasting orfuturology research for specificprojects.

In 1967, some 600 similar institu¬tions were operating in the U.S.A., butsaturation point was reached and theirgrowth stopped. Hardly a single largecorporation, firm, board or institutionwas without its own forecasting ser¬vice.

Later, demands for complex, long-term forecasts gradually came to behandled by the bigger U.S. researchorganizations and the top experts inthe forecasting field. Of the 356 orga¬nizations of this kind operating in 1970,various government-operated or gov¬ernment-subsidized, services account¬

ed for about one-half, corporationsfor a third, universities for a sixth and

various foundations for about a tenth.

The most influential of the futurolo¬

gy research organizations in westernEurope and America include the "Futu-ribles" organization, in Paris, "Man-

kind 2000", In London, the "Commis¬

sion for the Year 2000," at the U.S.

Academy of Arts and Sciences, in Bos¬ton, the "World Future Society", inWashington, the "Gesellschaft für Zu¬kunftsforschung", In the Fed. Rep. ofGermany, and the "Futurology Asso-,ciation of Japan." In recent years theyhave convened a number of national

and international conferences and sym¬posia, among the most important ofwhich were the international future

research congresses held in Oslo, in1967, and Kyoto, in 1970.

The 1960s saw the founding of spe¬cialized magazines such as "Analyseet Prévision" and "2000" (France), "Fu¬turist" (U.S.A.), "Futurum" (Fed. Rep.of Germany), "Technological Forecast¬ing" (U.S.A.), and "Trend" (Czecho-slova.kia).

In the U.S.S.R. special departmentshave been set up to work on thetheoreticaj problems of social fore¬casting, and several hundred groupsof scientists are carrying out appliedresearch and drawing up precise fore¬casts for factories, industrial groupsand indeed entire industries.

The U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciencesand Soviet ministries are now veryactive in these fields. For example,the scientific councils of the Academyof Sciences concerned with planning,social research, etc., have set up spe¬cial sections to co-ordinate the work

of forecasting specialists on variousboards and institutions, while mem¬

bers of the Soviet Sociological Asso¬ciation have founded a ForecastingInstitute which conducts permanentseminars where experts meet to com¬pare notes on their work.

Specific forecasts have already beenmade in the U.S.S.R. concerning de¬velopments up to the year 2000 in fueland power, the water economy, hy¬dro-power construction and trans¬

port. Long range problems of science(the manufacture of new materials, the

greater use of chemistry in production,the future possibilities of biology, etc.)have been studied, and a scientific es¬timate has been made of the extension

of higher and specialized secondaryeducation in the 1970s.

Social forecasting services are beingset up in the German Democratic

Republic and Bulgaria. In Poland, astate committee, "Poland in the Year

2000", has been established under the

chairmanship of the Vice-President ofthe Academy of Sciences. Similarresearch groups are being set up InCzechoslovakia, Romania and Hungary.

Symposia, which brought togetherCONTINUED PAGE 27

Mimicking the movements of a human arm and hand with ghostlyprecision, this Soviet-developed artificial arm and hand unit bringsnew hope to amputees. Myoelectric impulses (the tiny electricalimpulses emitted when a muscle contracts) are picked up byelectrodes attached to the stump of an arm, amplified and usedto activate a miniature motor which opens or closes the artificialhand. Amputees fitted with these ingenious false limbs can undertakesuch delicate tasks as shaving, sewing, painting and model-making.Thanks to the almost incredible advances made in electronics, themachine has indeed become an extension of the human brain.

25

Unless you are selected for a space flight or a voyage of exploration of the ocean bed, youwill never see the sun eclipsed by the earth, above left, or this submarine "snowflake"growing on the ocean bed 5,300 metres below the surface of the sea, above right. To futuregenerations, or even to children now alive, such sights may one day be commonplace. Butif most of us are still chained to the more pedestrian life (below) of this planet, futurologycan open up a tempting vision and in our imagination we too can scale the heights andplumb the depths of the universe.

SOVIET SCIENTIST (Continued)

representatives from the East Europeancountries, were held in Prague in 1967and 1968 to discuss "Man and Society

in the Scientific-Technological Revo¬lution". Two further symposia tookplace in Moscow, in 1970, one concern¬ed with scientific, technological, soc¬ial and economic questions, the other

with medico-biological forecasting.

The greatest progress has beenmade in the forecasting of scientific,technological, economic, demographicand criminological trends which arecomparatively easy to express statis¬tically, but the forecasting of trends inethnic processes, public education,culture and sociology, which are moredifficult to define in numerical terms,

have tended to lag behind.

In global terms, there is a need formore systematic forecasting on thelong-term consequences of the tech¬nological revolution, on the easing ofinternational tensions, on the slow¬

down and ultimate halting of the armsrace, and on partial or complete disar¬mament. The Specialized Agencies ofthe United Nations, and in particularUnesco, could play a major role inthese studies.

The increasing pollution of the bio¬sphere, for example, is closely linkedwith the dynamics and balances ofworld fuel and power, raw materialsand transport. Even an outline fore¬

cast of critical situations that mightarise in the future, along with sugges¬tions for meeting them, would be ofimmense use.

The long-term problem of theworld food situation is a major pre¬occupation of the Food and AgricultureOrganization. The "green revolution"and technical advances in the produc¬

tion of synthetic foods open up vasthorizons. Yet despite these scientificand technical successes, social condi¬

tions in the world are such that two

thirds of its people are still under¬nourished, with one-half actually livingunder conditions of starvation. Fore¬

casts made with a view to achieving asufficient food balance could be of

capital value in the war against hunger.

A crucial factor in the developmentof Asian, African and Latin American

countries is the problem of findingemployment for their exploding popu¬lations. To meet this problem, dozens

of new agricultural and industrial areaswill have to be created on these

continents.

In this connexion, the International

Labour Organization will certainly needto devote its attention, among othermeasures, to projects that have been

drawn up for a general "reconstruc¬tion" of vast areas of the African,South American and Asian continents.

Appropriate use of the potential hy¬dro-electric power of African rivers,particularly the Congo, would providewater for the irrigation of millions ofacres of lands which could then be¬

come hinterlands for dozens of bigindustrial centres. The Aswan HighDam, built in the United Arab Repu¬blic with aid from the Soviet Union, is

a striking example in Africa of a majorengineering enterprise designed totransform and develop a national eco¬

nomy.

However, in such far-reaching pro¬jects there is an inherent danger thatwe may unwittingly disturb the balanceof nature. But such risks could be

reduced to reasonable proportions bysystematic forecasts and studies. Con¬sidering the social significance of suchprojects, it would be advisable to beginthis research immediately.

No less urgent is the need forforecasts on long-term problemsposed by a reconversion of the worldeconomy in the event of a halt beingcalled to the arms race and, beyondthis, the prospect of partial or com¬plete disarmament.

It is sometimes suggested that thearms race should be allowed to go

on merely to forestall the danger ofeconomic dislocation. It would surelybe more sensible to consider this

whole question on a scientific basis,by attempting to construct a series ofexploratory and normative forecastingmodels relating to the reconversion ofthe world economy on a regional andglobal scale.

The forecasts could cover not only

economic aspects, but also prospectsfor a positive development of interna¬tional relations, including the progres¬sive easing of international tensions,the completion of de-colonization, thehalting of the arms race, the banningof weapons of mass destruction, andcomplete and general disarmament,with effective control over all these

measures exercised by the United Na¬tions and its Specialized Agencies.

Finally, the forecasts could tacklethe problems of reorganizing the mili¬tary-industrial potential of the devel¬oped countries as resources for boost¬ing technological and social progresson a global scale.

A programme of this scope andvision would need the services of many

research organizations, and a leadingrole could fall to the scientific bodies

of the United Nations, particularlyUnesco.

And in this quest for peace and

disarmament, the specialists engaged y Jin social forecasting would have a 'major responsibility to plan for itssuccess.

By the beginning of the 21st century, three quarters of the world's population,it is estimated, will be living in urban conglomerations. What life will be like forour children and grandchildren in these cities is anybody's guess, but alreadyfuturologists are trying to work out forecasts for the organization and managementof these conurbations and the millions living in them. Photos symbolize: left,city built of stacks of punched cards in a world of computers; right, sardineskyscrapers for every Tom, Dick and Harry.

28

PONDERING

THE IMPONDERABLE

by Pierre Piganiol

DECISION-MAKING has

always Implied looking ahead, that is,looking at the future, or as the lateGaston Berger termed it "a pros¬pective approach". However, it Isonly in the past 20 years that thisprospective approach has been pro¬perly defined. (1)

The speed at which modern societyis now evolving ¡s a completely newfactor the importance of which cannotbe underestimated. Our acts todaywill bear fruit in a world very differentfrom the one in which they wereconceived, and even the great con¬querors of history who wanted todominate and change the worldrarely Imagined that future societieswould be very much different fromthose they lived in.

Gaston Berger expresses hismessage in a brilliant style whichgives a clear picture of his main linesof thought. Society to him is likea ship tossed on a vast ocean whichneeds pilots to guide it through therocks, but also requires a prophet toset the course.

Unfortunately, simply to define aprospective or forward-looking attitudeis not enough to enable us to selecta line of action, and at the time ofBerger's death, in 1960, the availablemethod for making such a selectionleft much to be desired.

Here the futurology approach con¬sisted mainly in pinpointing certaindata which were recognized, intuitivelyor otherwise, as having a determininginfluence in shaping the future, andcarefully studying all the possibleimplications of any decisions taken.

At about this time there was

developed, first in the U.S. and very

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

(1) Today the French use the term flfl"prospective" coined by the French phlloso- /Mpher-industrlalist Gaston Berger, as a syno-nym of futurology, with perhaps a slightphilosophical overtone that the word futu¬rology does not have in English.

Photo © The Illustrated London News

PONDERING THE IMPONDERABLE (Continued)

Computerized happiness, computerized happiness, computerized

soon thereafter all over the world, a

technique for choosing a course ofaction with reference to the veryspecific needs of those who had tomake Important decisions in military orindustrial matters.

Research carried out In this fieldled in one instance to the "Relevance

Tree" method (see page 14), whichstresses the need to formulate clear

criteria and to give a weighting (indexof relevance) to each element con¬sidered In relation to these criteria,

some of which may be purely objective,but which, in most cases includeconcepts relating to quality.

This qualitative weighting is difficultbut very necessary since it allows themethod to be extended to cover human

problems more complex than straight¬forward technological choices.

Improvement of these methods was,of course, linked with parallel progressin methods of forecasting the mostlikely future scientific discoveries.In the last few years we have seen anincrease in such research and the crea¬

tion of techniques that range from thesystematic classification of the opi¬nions of a panel of experts (the Delphimethod, see page 12), to the logicalanalysis of the patterns of sciencefrom which those likely to lead tofuture discoveries can be deduced.

Despite their obvious limitations, allthese methods have proved extremelyvaluable and, since 1968, there has

been a temptation to apply them notonly to technological choices but tothe evolution of society as a whole.

It was quickly realized, howeverthat the "Relevance Tree" form of

reasoning was inadequate for the studyof the complexities of the social world.Futurologists have therefore, made useof the "systems" approach which,endowed with a highly sophisticatedmathematical technique, had beenwidely applied in the management ofmodern industry.

So we have now reached the stagewhen we can devise the first "social

models" that can be handled by compu¬ters,, thus making it possible to drawthe outlines of the dynamic evolutionof the world situation in a future which,

30

PIERRE PIGANIOL, a French physicist andformer head of the Délégation Générale à laRecherche Scientifique et Technique, ispresident of the board of the French NationalInstitute of Agronomic Research, in Paris, andan executive with a French organizationdealing with operational research. A leadingmember of the French National Centre of

Scientific Research, he is currently Unescoadviser on science policy to the govern¬ments of Senegal and the Lebanon. He haswritten widely on scientific questions inclu¬ding the future implications of scientificdevelopment and other problems of futuro¬logy. He Is the author of "Pour une PolitiqueScientifique" (co-author Louis Villecourt),Flammarlon (1964); "Maîtriser le Progrès",Laffont (1968); and "Du Nid à la Cité", Dunod(1970).

for some models, extends as far as theyear 2050.

We have come round full circle and

are returning to Gaston Berger's"prospective attitude" which in themeantime has been enriched by betterde'fined, computer-assisted methods ofreasoning.

There is clearly a risk that themethod may finally obliterate the ob¬jectives. But in my view, we cannotafford to neglect any new methods ortechniques or spurn the research aidsand tools now available to us. Thoughthe present "models" we set up maybe far from perfect, they" have much tooffer us, even if they do no more thanforce us accept their more rigorousand precise standards and abandonmere verbalism.

Although I shall be pointing out anumber of difficulties that are still in¬

herent in these newly developed meth¬ods, I do not wish to give the impres¬sion that I have nothing but criticismfor them. My aim is to encourage theirdevelopment and to suggest guidingprinciples for their use rather than toarouse unjustified suspicion of them.

BUT having said this, I

would add that prudence is necessaryfor many reasons. The first is thatsocial problems are extremely complexand we have still much to learn about

the cause and effect relationship bet¬ween a decision in the field of human

affairs and its actual consequences.

I know of no model which is not

obliged take into account the changesin population either in a particularcountry or in the world as a whole;yet as demographers are well aware, itis extremely difficult to isolate the fac¬tors that determine the rate of popula¬tion increase. One can try to link thisrate with standards of living, progressin medicine, availability of raw mate¬rials, the quality of food or the amountof energy available.

This exercise is very important. If weapply it to the past it confirms thecurve followed by the actual growthrate of population up to 1970. But I donot see this as absolute proof of itsvalidity when applied to the future.For this, after all, is what interestsus, and here the models indicate some

far-reaching transformations such asthe slowing down of the populationgrowth rate during the next century.

In brief, the first difficulty lies inour ignorance of the fundamental andindeed nighly complex laws of demo¬graphy.

The second difficulty is due to thenumber of factors to be taken into

account. Here also demography offersan example.

Recent studies relating to a Latin

American country revealed in greatdetail what would happen if the popu¬lation level was suddenly to becomeconstant.

One might imagine that this situationwould solve many economic problems.But this would be an oversimplification.A levelling-off in population would re¬sult in remarkably far-reaching fluctua¬tions in the school population, and inthe ratio of working to non-workingpopulation. This ratio could fluctuateby up to 100 per cent in a series ofoscillations over several centuries.

This hypothesis is, of course, Uto¬pian and it is impossible to imagine(perhaps this is just as well) howthe fertility rate could be reduced from6 to 0.6, then made to rise again gra¬dually over a period of thirty years andfinally made to fall again that is, tosubject the fertility rate to a series ofsubdued oscillations which would

result in a constant population level.

The third difficulty arises from thefact that experimental verifications areimpossible. A model can, of course,be tested against the past, but thissuggests implicit acceptance of the factthat transformations have not been

sufficiently strong to have throwndoubt upon the structure of the model.I may be wrong, but I do not haveconfidence in a model simply becauseit has given a correct description ofthe events of the last twenty years;I even tend to think that it might havebeen adjusted to achieve this result.

These models also suppose thatvarious aspects of society can berepresented with the help of certainindicators, some quantitative (nationalincome, future yields, etc.), and somequalitative (feelings of happiness, free¬dom, etc.). These indicators are ob¬viously "global", that is, they includeboth the many aspects of a particularsocial situation as well as the whole

range of individual human behaviour.

The problem is to know what usethese indicators will serve in a periodof crisis. We should not forget thatthese models are established so as to

enable us to analyse forthcomingcrises, and it would be a pity if thiswere precisely what they lacked theability to do.

Perhaps models are subject to thesame phenomenon as may be observ¬ed in certain mechanical appliances.A network of pipes, for example, maybe equipped with a fine set of pres¬sure gauges, but when "hammering"occurs in the pipes the gauge readingsbear no relation to real pressure. Itmay well be wondered whether somerecent analyses, both of society as awhole and of a number of industrial

companies, do not contain inherenterrors precisely because they areusing faulty indicators.

Thus, to the material difficulty of pro¬cessing data whose interactions are

happiness, compu...

often difficult to foresee, another prob¬lem is added: a somewhat arbitrarysimplification of social phenomena.We may be agreed on the need for sim¬plification for the sake of understand¬ing, but it is much more difficult toaccept over-simplified presentations ofreality when the time comes to make adecision. Premature over-confidence

in the results of what are still experi¬mental methods for exploring the fu¬ture, and their adoption as a basisfor decision-making would be ex¬tremely dangerous.

A further difficulty, perhaps evenmore serious, may be added to thosealready mentioned. Technological fore"-casting has developed in a world whichhas a certain control over innovation

in products or processes, and wealready have a sketchy, though work¬able, idea of the innovative process.Nothing comparable exists in the socialsciences.

We may conclude this list of diffi¬culties (without, however, completingit) by an important comment: everysociety has its contradictions; its com¬ponent sub-systems to borrow an over¬used mechanistic phrase, are by nomeans coherent among themselves.The problem is that they mesh withone another just sufficiently so thatthe tensions created by the underlyingcontradictions do not exceed accep¬table limits.

In the present situation, perhaps weshould ask ourselves: are our models

and the machines exploring them capa¬ble of inventing new structures andresolving existing contradictions?

What I have said could give theimpression that I am opposed to theuse of these models. I hope I have madeit clear that this is not the case. Byall means let us use these models but

with caution accompanied by a muchmore scrupulous analysis of those fac¬tors in our society that have an in¬fluence in determining the future.

Let us identify a few of the moststriking, if not the most important, ofthese factors.

Nowadays, throughout the world, weare witnessing a wave of enthusiasmfor higher education. Several majorcountries have already reached thestage at which about 50 per cent ofpeople of an age to enter higher edu¬cation in fact do so.

A society in which 50 per cent ofcitizens have reached this level can

in no sense be run in the same wayas those in which the training of spe¬cialists and administrators is restricted

by the limitations of the educationsystem.

There is bound to be an increased

desire for responsibility and partici¬pation in decision-making. And thisdesire will emerge in a world in whichproduction units and groups providing

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

Photo © Jean Suquet, Paris

When the last tree has been felled by the last lumberjack to makeway for the latest industrial complex, will nostalgia for the daysof autumn leaves and "the darling buds of May" impel us to reforestthe land with reinforced concrete conifers and plastic poplars?"From now on", says Pierre Piganiol, "human activities, multiplied bypopulation growth, will have to be studied from the point of viewof their interaction with the natural environment".

31

PONDERING THE IMPONDERABLE (Continued)

services will become larger and largerand in which, consequently, the oppor¬tunities for responsibility will be fewerthan could be desired.

In these conditions, tensions willappear which will probably lead tocareers of a cyclic type in whichperiods of carrying out orders willalternate with periods of responsibilityand periods of study. This is, ofcourse, only a rough outline.

Periods of study will also be madenecessary by the rapid Increase In theamount of new knowledge requiredand by the accelerated renewal of thematerial means which determine asociety's way of life.

Two aspects of study thereforeemerge: the cultural and the practical.In order to understand the world in

which he lives, each person throughouthis life, will need to broaden his know¬ledge of society, in order to contributeas a citizen to Its improvement. Studyas the key to a fuller life will becomea feature of fully developed societies.

On the practical level, each manwill need either to keep his working

knowledge (his working tool whichbecomes ever more rapidly obsolete)up to date, by re-training, or to acquirenew knowledge (another working ins¬trument), by re-conversion. This willdemand social structures that enable

each person to undertake additionalstudy which will be continuous In thecultural sphere and periodic but Inten¬sive on the practical side.

This raises the problem of Income.It Is very likely that for psychologicalreasons the range of salaries willbecome smaller, with the level ofremuneration linked more closely tothe man than to the job. It Is alsoprobable that systems of benefits willbe established for those who leave

their work in order to study.

One can see looming on the horizona period in which income will no longerbe distributed indirectly, as in the past,through payment for work (or possiblythrough accumulated capital), but byother means a situation which can

already be partly seen today.

A second essential factor having abearing on the future is the growing

32

Further reading on futurologyThere is such a vast body of writing on futurology in English thatwe have had to limit this bibliography to a short list of 20 titles.Readers interested in studying more about futurology will findlengthy bibliographies in many of the books listed below.

Future Shock, by Alvin Toffler. Random House, New York, 1970.Inventing the Future, by Dennis Gabor. Seeker and Warburg, London ;Alfred A. Knopf Inc., New York. 1969.The Future of the Future, by John McHale. George Braziller Inc.,New York, 1969.Discovery, Invention, Research, by Fritz Zwicky. Macmillan, Toronto,1969.

The Language of Forecasting, François Hetmán. (Bilingual English-Frenchdictionary) Coll. Futuribles. Ed. Sedeis, Paris. 1969.Mankind 2000, Editors : Robert Jungk and Johan Gattung.Universitetsforlaget, Oslo ; Allen and Unwin, London, 1969.Tomorrow is Already Here, by Robert Jungk. Simon and Schuster,New York, 1954.Futurology, Int. Social Science Journal, Vol. XXI, No. 4, Unesco, 1969.The Year 2000, by Herman Kahn and Anthony J. Wiener. MacMillan,London and New York, 1967.Inventing Education for the Future, Werner Z. Hirsch (ed.). Chandler,San Francisco, 1967.The Art of Conjecture, by Bertrand de Jouvenel. Basic Books Inc.,New York, 1967.Technological Forecasting in Perspective, by Eric Jantsch. OECD,Paris, 1969.

Toward the Year 2000 : Work in Progress. "Daedalus", Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Summer 1967 issue.Cambridge, Mass.History and Futurology, Ossip K. Flechtheim. Verlag Anton Hain, Fed.Rep. of Germany, 1966.Technology and Man's Future, by Hasan Ozbekhan. SystemsDevelopment Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif., 1966.The World in 1984, Nigel Calder (ed.). Penguin Books, Baltimore1965 (2 vol.).Ideas and Integrities, by R. Buckminster Fuller. Prentice-Hail Inc.,Englewood Cliffs, N.J., U.S.A., 1963Nine Chains to the Moon, by R. Buckminster Fuller. Southern IllinoisUniversity Press, U.S.A., 1963.The Race to the Year 2000, by Fritz Baade. Doubleday, New York. 1962.The Image of the Future, Vol. I, by Fred L. Polak. Ä.W. Sijthoff, Leyden,Netherlands; Oceana Publications, Inc., Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., 1961.

Influence of man on his natural envi¬

ronment. Formerly, man was markedoff by his capacity for thought fromthe rest of nature which his presencehardly disturbed and then only in loca¬lised areas. Today the situation haschanged and our energy requirements,for example, mean that we release Intothe atmosphere considerable quantitiesof carbon dioxide which can cause

climatic changes.

From now on, human activities, mul¬tiplied by population growth, will needto be studied In terms of their reper¬cussions on the natural environment.The forecasting of imbalances or ofnew states of equilibrium has becomeessential.

Finally, a third factor: decision¬making in a complex world impliesextensive knowledge; it requires ex¬perts. But how far can these expertstake account of public opinion or becontrolled by It? Is there not a consi¬derable risk of establishing a more orless esoteric technocracy?

This closes my list of examples.Some ambitious projects attempt to fitevery aspect of society into a parti¬cular model and, in particular, to dealwith the factors I have used as exam¬

ples by analysing their interactions.What is one to think of this?

The three problems outlined aboveare clearly very different. The seconddeals with a concrete problem,a difficult one certainly since itconcerns meteorology, but one which,nevertheless, can be expressed in theform of a model. Indeed, it hasrecently proved possible to make amap of Europe, in connexion with pro¬posed Industrial activities in England,showing the sulphur fallout In rain.

The first example deals among otherthings with the supply and demandratio for skilled manpower. It is pos¬sible to make a model of this; it wouldbe only approximate, but would, never¬theless, be of considerable help tofurther studies.

The third and last example presentsa typical problem of organization andpsychology. Nothing is more difficultthan to assign numerical values to the"feeling of freedom" or the "sense ofresponsibility," and It Is obvious, forexample, that air-line pilots can hardlybe selected by universal vote.

From this is clear how complexfuturology is and how difficult It is toreduce it to a series of simple formulasor a simple mode of action.

Depending on what approach istaken, the work of the futurologistmay be worthwhile and effective (evenif certain elements of information are

uncertain) or it may be naive andeven dangerous (even if the workappears to be based on highly sophis¬ticated reasoning).

When all is said and done, planningthe future cannot be reduced to a sim¬

ple problem of logic (though logic mustof course guide all our decisions).Equally Important are common senseand questions of ethics.

BOOKSHELF

RECENT UNESCO BOOKS

Students as Links Between

Cultures

A cross cultural surveyEdited by Ingrid EideCo-edition Unesco-Universitetsfor-

laget, Oslo1970 (£3, $10.00).

Broadcasting from Space(Reports and Papers on MassCommunication, No. 60)1970 (45p. $1.50).

Principles of CulturalCo-operationBy Suiwyn Lewis(Reports and Papers on MassCommunication, No. 61)1971 (30p, $1.00).

Educational Trends in 1970

An international survey prepared bythe International Bureau of Education

1970 (45p. $1.50).

Teachers' Associations

(International Directories of Educationseries)Trilingual: English, French, Spanish2nd ed. revised, 1970 (£1.05, $3.50).

An Introduction to LifelongEducation

By Paul Lengrand1970 (75p, $2.50).

Research for Educational Planning:notes on emergent needsBy William J. Piatt1970 (60p, $2.00).

The Role of Science and Techno¬

logy in Economic Development(Science Policy Studies and Docu¬ments, No. 18)1970 (£1.20. $4 00).

La Calligraphie Chinoise : un Artà Quatre DimensionsBy Leon Long-yien ChangClub Français du Livre,8, rue de la Paix, Paris, 1971 (75 F).(See "Treasures of World Art",page 2).

Unveiling Man's Origins: TenDecades of Thought about HumanEvolution

By L.S.B. Leakeyand Vanne Morris Goodall

Methuen and Co., Ltd., London,

1969 (£1.60).

G3 IPlb i E G2

World social

science index

A "World Index of Social Science Insti¬

tutions" has just been published as aspecial service of Unesco's quarterly "Inter¬national Social Science Journal". A bilin¬

gual English/French index of over 1,000cards it lists data on social science

research units, advanced training anddocumentation institutions and professionalbodies. The Index costs $9, £2.70 ($15,£4.50 with binder). A regular updatingservice is provided free to subscribers tothe "International Social Science Journal"

(annual subscription $7, £2.10).

Extra funds for

Palestine refugee schools

Over $600,000 have been pledged by theArab States and by Switzerland as addi¬tional aid to UNRWAthe U.N. Relief and

Works Agency for Palestine Refugees forthe joint UNRWA/Unesco education pro¬gramme for refugee children. Spain is tocontribute $50,000 worth of school equip¬ment. This was stated by AmbassadorMansour Khalid, Sudan's chief representa¬tive to the United Nations, reporting inParis recently on the first part of hisround-the-world fund-raising mission asspecial envoy of Unesco's Director-Gen¬eral, Mr. René Maheu. His mission follow¬

ed an international appeal on behalf ofthe refugee schools launched by Mr. Maheu(See "Unesco Courier" March 1971).Extra help is needed because the workof UNRWA, which has cared for the refu¬gees for 20 years, is threatened by a$5 million deficit In its 1971 budget.Ambassador Khalid is also spending sev¬eral weeks in European countries, the FarEast and North and South America.

Unesco anniversaryposter competition

To mark Unesco's 25th anniversary thisyear, the Unesco affiliated InternationalAssociation of Art is organizing a competi¬tion for young artists (aged 15 to 25) todesign a poster illustrating the theme "AWorld Fit to Live In". A first prize of$500 and five additional prizes of $100will be awarded. Further details from local

International Association of Art Offices or

Unesco National Commissions in Unesco's

member states.

Unesco best known

U.N. agency in Japan

Unesco is better known in Japan thanany other U.N. Specialized Agency accord¬ing to a nation-wide public opinion poll onthe popularity of the .United Nations and itsSpecialized Agencies and what the Japaneseknow about their work.

In the poll, carried out last year by theJapanese Prime Minister's Office at therequest of the United Nations Associationof Japan (UNAJ), persons over the age of20 were picked at random for questioning.

The results, published recently in a spe¬cial issue of the UNAJ "Kokuren News"

devoted to last year's U.N. 25th anniversarycelebrations in Japan, showed that 66 percent of those questioned knew aboutUnesco and its work. Next in order of

popularity came ILO (51 per cent), follow¬ed by the International Monetary Fund(42 per cent), World Bank (38 par cent),UNICEF (36 per cent), Economic Commis¬sion for Asia and the Far East (27 per cent)and FAO (14 per cent).

Eighty-six per cent of those polled saidthey knew about the United Nations and78 per cent thought it was doing well.Only four per cent found its performancescompletely negative, while 58 per cent saidit needed strengthening.

Five-nation seismic survey

Unesco is to undertake a $4.2 millionseismic survey in Bulgaria, Greece, Roma¬nia, Turkey and Yugoslavia on behalf ofthe United Nations Development Program¬me. The Balkans have suffered heavily inrecent years from a number of devastat¬ing earthquakes. The 4-year projectcovers the setting up or modernization offour observatories and 14 smaller stations

equipped with seismographs and otherInstruments. Data obtained will be used

to produce maps of seismic risk for desi¬gners, engineers and architects responsiblefor town planning, housing and publicworks. The UNDP will contribute $700,000towards the project with the remainder ofthe cost being borne by the countriesconcerned.

Flashes...

M Nepal has banned tiger shooting andthe import and export of tiger skins as acontribution to international efforts to save

the animal from extinction.

Two stone tablets covered with cunei¬

form inscriptions describing the construc¬tion of King Darius' palace at Susa in522 B.C. have been excavated by a Frencharchaeological team working in Iran.

Japan recently passed 14 anti-pollutionlaws including one requiring industriesresponsible for pollution to pay up to100 % of the cost of preventative mea¬sures.

M The International Development Associa¬tion is lending Pakistan $25 million forreconstruction in areas stricken by lastNovember's cyclone disaster.

International aid for 4 million refugeesThe welfare of an estimated 4 million refugees is

today the concern of the United Nations and its Special¬ized Agencies. To remind the world of this huge andstill growing problem, the U.N. Postal Administrationlast month issued a commemorative stamp (right) on thetheme "International Support for Refugees" . It isprinted in three denominations (6 and 13 cents andSw. Fr. 0^50). As agent in France for the U.N. PostalAdministration, Unesco's Philatelic Service stocks all

U.N. stamps and first day covers currently on sale. Fordetails write to the Unesco Philatelic Service, Unesco,Place de Fontenoy, Paris-7e.

Letters to the Editor

THE ROOTS OF CULTURE

Sir,

I thought the December 1970 issueof the Courier, on "Carthage must notbe destroyed" was magnificent, but theone on "Cultural Policy" (January 1971)I found rather depressing.

Surely, of all institutions, Unescoshould be the last to encourage allthese nations to try and foster "nationalpride and dignity" on the basis of somealleged heritage connected with theirpart of the world. To my mind, anItalian of today has no more connexionwith Roman civilization than anybodyelse, nor for that matter a Tunisian withCarthage.

Everybody, but especially your Jamai¬can and Kenyan contributors, seems totalk about culture as if it were some¬

thing mystical brought down upon theirpeople from somewhere. To my laymind, culture is simply something thatgrows out of the contributions of indi¬vidual men and women.

I do not know about African and

Asian languages, but I know thatsomeone who is "cultured" or cultivé or

kultiviert, is so not because he was

born in England or France or Germany,or is an exponent of that particularculture. It always struck me as absurdand pathetic for people to feel compell¬ed to stick labels of so-called "national

origin" to cultural achievements, suchas talking about the "German" scientistAlbert Einstein, just because the placewhere he was born happened by chanceto be situated in Germany.

Should not Unesco rather emphasizethe inter-relation of culture that Euro¬

pean culture anyway seems to haveoriginated in the Middle East, thatNégritude has made an important impacton Western civilisation, and that insteadof the strenuous efforts of some to

boost their "national" egos, they shouldrather start thinking more in terms ofuniversality and humanity.

J. Lettner

Salisbury, Rhodesia

OLD MANGBETU CUSTOM

Sir,

The caption to the photograph of apottery vessel published in your January1971 issue (on page 28) describes itas a water jug "made by an Africancraftsman of Mangbetu".

It should be pointed out that "Mang¬betu" properly describes not a place,but a Nilotic people from the regionof Isiro in the North of the Democratic

Republic of the Congo.It is interesting to note that until

some thirty years ago it was a Mangbetucustom to deform the shape of theirchildren's skulls by binding the headtightly with cords immediately afterbirth. As the head grew it assumed akind of sugarloaf form and the eyestook on a somewhat slit-like appear¬ance.

Their distinctive hair style and theelongated shape of their heads gavethe Mangbetu the characteristic appear¬ance that is clearly recalled in thesculptured head on the vessel you

show- J.J. DeheynParis, France

Drawing by Mme Philip Dahlberg. Brussels

BLIND MAM'S BLUFF

Sir.

The photo and the text recounting thewell known Indian fable of the blind

men and the elephant ("Blind Man'sBluff", page 16 of your January 1971issue) remind us that we published thesame fable in the January 1970 numberof our magazine, "Rapports Techniquesdu CEBELCOR" (Belgian Centre for theStudy of Corrosion).

I enclose the pages on which wepublished an English version of thefable in verse, "The Blind Men and theElephant", written by John GodfreySaxe (1816-1887), along with a Frenchtranslation of the poem (from my; pen).You will see that we added several

verses in French, appropriate to thework done by our centre, inspired byan American metallurgist, Dr. BenjaminFloyd Brown. The drawing illustratingour text was the work of Madame PhilipDahlberg.

Marcel Pourbaix

Director, Belgian Centrefor the Study of Corrosion, Brussels

We reproduce, right, the poem byJohn Godfrey Saxe together with ourrendering of the verses in French addedby the Brussels Centre Editor.

THE BLIND MEN

AND THE ELEPHANT

By John Godfrey Saxe

It was six men of Hindostán,

To learning much inclined,Who went to see the elephant

(Though all of them were blind);

That each by observationMight satisfy his mind.

The first approached the elephant,

And happening to fallAgainst his broad and sturdy side,

At once began to bawl,"Bless me, it seems the elephant

Is very like a wall."

The second, feeling of his tuskCried, "Ho! what have we here

So very round and smooth and sharp?To me 'tis mighty clearThis wonder of an elephant

Is very like a spear."

The third approached the animal

And happening to takeThe squirming trunk within his handsThen boldly up and spake;

"I see", quoth he, "the elephantIs very like a snake".

The fourth stretched out his eager[hand

And felt about the knee,

"What most this mighty beast is likeIs mighty plain", quoth he;"Tis clear enough the elephantIs very like a tree."

The fifth who chanced to touch the

[earSaid, "Even the blindest man

Can tell what this resembles most;

Deny the fact who can,This marvel of an elephantIs very like a fan."

The sixth no sooner had begunAbout the beast to gropeThan, seizing on the swinging tailThat fell within his scope,"I see", cried he, "the elephantIs very like a rope."

And so these men of Hindostán

Disputed loud and long,Each of his own opinion

Exceeding stiff and strong,Though each was partly in the right,And all were in the wrong!

Additional verses inspired by somereflections on corrosion research byDr. Benjamin Floyd Brown.

To readers, friends, researchers

Seeking stress corrosion's key,This humble fable nurtures

A moral all can see.

Microstructures, dislocations,

Mechanics of break and strain,

Physi-chemical relations

And chemistry pure and plain,

Corrosive interactions,

All electro-chemistry,Films that interdict reactions,

Cathode, anode alchemy,

As the wise Floyd Brown related,"Here's the whole anatomy

Of stress corrosion stated

With clear simplicity.

"But a perfect comprehensionOf the problem we can't wrest

From each separate point I mentionIsolated from the rest.

"We must give considerationTo the problem as a whole;

Overall examination

Is the way to reach our goal."

b X

use and

conservation of

the biosphere

unesco

272 pages £1.80 $6.00 24 F

A major Unesco study

An outstanding study of man's exploitationof nature and his environment and its

effects on the delicate balance of the Bio¬

sphere the thin layer of air, water and land

on our planet where life exists. Presents

views and findings of scientists at the first

world conference on Man and the Biosphere,

held at Unesco, Paris, in September 1968.

Poses one of the most crucial questions of

our time: 'Can we keep our planet habitable?'

The havoc wrought by man against nature

The increasing pollution of air and water

Deforestation and loss of soil fertility

Protection of wildlife and plants.

Science and the rational use of natural resources.

Where to renew your subscriptionand order other Unesco publications

Order from any bookseller, or write direct tothe National Distributor in your country. (See listbelow ; names of distributors in countries notlisted will be supplied on request.) Payment ismade in the national currency ; the rates quotedare for an annual subscription to THE UNESCOCOURIER in any one language.

AUSTRALIA. Publications : Educacional Supplies Pty.Ltd., P.O. Box 33, Brookvale, 2100, NSW; Periodicals :Dominie Pty. Limited, Box 33, Post Office, Brook¬vale 2100, NSW. Sub-agent. United Nations Asso¬ciation of Australia, Victorian Division, 4th Floor,Askew House, 364 Lonsdale St., Melbourne (Vic¬toria), 3000 (S 2.75). AUSTRIA. Verlag GeorgFromme & C*., Arbeitgasse 1-7, 1051, Vienna, (AS 82).

BELGIUM. Editions "Labor", 342, rue Royale,Brussels, 3. Presses Universitaires de Bruxelles, 42,avenue Paul-Héger, Brussels 5. NV Standaard-We-tenschappelijke Uitgevenj Belgielei 147, Antwerp, I.Jean de Lannoy, 112, rue du Trône, Brussels 5. CCP3380.00. BURMA. Trade Corporation N° (9), 550-552 Merchant Street, Rangoon. CANADA. InformationCanada, Ottawa, Ont. ($ 4,00). CEYLON. Lake HouseBookshop, Sir Chittampalam Gardiner Mawata, P.O.B. 244Colombo, 2. (Rs 12.50). CHINA. World Book Co.Ltd., 99 Chungking South Rd., Section 1, Taipeh,Taiwan (Formosa). CYPRUS. "MAM", ArchbishopMakanos 3rd Avenue, P.O. Box 1 722, Nicosia.CZECHOSLOVAKIA. S.N.T.L., Spalena 51, Prague 1(permanent display); Zahranicni literatura 11 SoukenickaPrague 1. For Slovakiaonly : Nakladatelstvo Alfa, Hurba-novo nam. 6 Bratislava. - DENMARK. Ejnar MunksgaardLtd., 6, Norregade, 1 1 65,Copenhagen K. (Dan. Kr. 19.00).

ETHIOPIA. National Commission for Unesco, P.O.Box 2996, Addis Ababa. FINLAND, AkateeminenKirjakauppa, 2 Keskuskatu, Helsinki (Fmk. 11.90).FRANCE. Librairie de I'Unesco, place de Fontenoy,Paris-7«. CCP. 12598-48 (12 F). GERMANY. Allpublications : Verlag Dokumentation, Postfach 1 48,jaiserstrasse 13, 8023 Munchen-Pullach. For theUnesco Kurier (German ed only) Bahrenfelder-Chaussee 160, Hambourg-Bahrenfeld, CCP. 276650(DM 12). GHANA. Methodist Book Depot

Ltd., Atlantic House, Commercial Street, POB 100,cape Coast. GREAT BRITAIN. See United Kingdom.

GREECE, Librairie H. Kauffmann, 28, rue du Stade,Athens; Librairie Eleftheroudakis, Nikkis 4, Athens.HONG-KONG, Swindon Book Co.. 13-15, Lock Road,Kowloon. HUNGARY. Akadémiai, Konyvesbok,Váci u. 22, Budapest V ; A.K.V. Könyvtarosok Boltja,Népkoztársaság utja 16, Budapest VI. ICELAND.Snaebjorn Jonsson & Co., H.F., Hafnarstraeti 9, Reykjavik.

INDIA. Orient Longman Ltd., Nicol Road, Ballard.Estate, Bombay 1 ; 1 7 Chittaranjan Avenue, Calcutta 1 3 ;36a, Mount Road, Madras 2; 3/5 Asaf Ali Road, NewDelhi 1 ; Sub-Depots: Oxford Book & Stationery Co.1 7 Park Street, Calcutta 1 6 and Scindia House, NewDelhi; Publications Section, Ministry of Education andYouth Services, 72 Theatre Communication Building,Connaught Place New Delhi 1. (Rs. 1 3.50). INDONE¬SIA. Indira P.T., Djl. Dr. Sam Ratulangie 37, Djakarta.

IRAN. Iranian National Commission for Unesco, 1/1 54avenue Roosevelt, B P. 1 533, Teheran. IRAQ. McKen-zie's Bookshop, Al-Rashid Street, Baghdad ; UniversityBookstore, University of Baghdad, P.O. Box 75, Baghdad.

IRELAND. The National Press, 2, Wellington Road,Ballsbridge, Dublin, 4. ISRAEL. Emmanuel Brown, for¬merly Blumstein's Bookstores, 35 Allenby Road and 48,Nahlat Benjamin Street,Tel-Aviv (IL. 1 5). JAMAICA.Sangster's Book Stores Ltd., P.O. Box 366, 101 WaterLane, Kingston. Maruzen Co. Ltd., P.O. Box5050, Tokyo International 1 00-31. Joseph I.Bahous & Co., Dar-ul-Kutub, Salt Road. P.O.B 66, Am¬man. KENYA. The E.S.A. Ltd , P.O. Box 301 67, Nai¬robi. KOREA. Korean National Commission for Unesco

P.O. Box Central 64. Seoul. KUWAIT, The Kuwait

Bookshop Co., Ltd., P.O. Box 2942, Kuwait. LIBERIA.Cole and Yancy Bookshops Ltd., P.O. Box 286.Monrovia. LIBYA. Agency for Development ofPublication & Distribution, P.O. Box 34-35, Tripoli.LUXEMBURG. Librairie Paul Brück, 22, Grand-Rue,

Luxembourg (F.L. 1 70). MALAYSIA. Federal Publica¬tions Sdn Bhd., Balai Berita, 31, Jalan Riong, Kuala Lum¬pur. MALTA. Sapienza's Library, 26 Kingsway, Vallet¬ta. MAURITIUS. Nalanda Company Ltd , 30, BourbonStreet, Port-Louis. MONACO. British Library, 30,Bid des Moulins, Monte-Carlo. NETHERLANDS.N. V. Martinus Ni¡hoff, Lange Voorhout, 9, the Hague.(fl. 10). NETHERLANDS ANTILLES. G. C T.Van Dorp & Co. (Ned Ant.). N. V., Willemstad, Cura¬çao. N.A. (NA fl. 5.25). NEW ZEALAND. Govern¬ment Printing Office, Government Bookshops at: RutlandStreet, P.O. Box 5344, Auckland; 130, Oxford Terrace,

P.O. Box 1721, Christchurch ; Alma Street, P.O. Box 857,Hamilton; Princes Street, P.O. Box 1104, Dunedin;Mulgrave Street, Private Bag, Wellington (S 2.15).NORWAY. All publications: A/S Bokhjornet, Josefi-nesgace 37, Oslo 3. For Unesco Courier only: A. S.Narvesens Litteraturjeneste, Box 6125, Oslo 6 (K.2.7 5). PAKISTAN. The West-Pak Publishing Co.Ltd., Unesco Publication House, P.O. Box 374 G.P.O.;Lahore ; Showrooms : Urdu Bazar, Lahore, and 57-58Murree, Highway, G/6 - 1 , Islamabad. Pakistan Publi¬cations Bookshop, Sarwar Road, Rawalpindi ; Paribagh,Dacca. PHILIPPINES. The Modern Book Co.. 928.Rizal Avenue, P.O. Box 632, Manila. POLAND. Allpublications: ORWN PAN Palac Kultury i Nauki, War¬saw. For the Unesco Courier only: RUCH, ul. Wronia, 23,Warsaw 1 0. PORTUGAL. Dias & Andrade Lda, Livra-na Portugal, rua de Carmo 70, Lisbon. SINGAPORE.Federal Publications Sdn Bhd., Times House, River ValleyRoad, Singapore 9. RHODESIA. Text¬book Sales(PVT) Ltd., 67 Union Avenue, Salisbury.SUDAN. AI Bashir Bookshop, P.O. Box 1118, Khartoum.

SWEDEN. All publications: A/B CE. Frítzes Kungl.Hovbokhandel, Fredsgatan, 2, Box 16356, 103 27, Stock¬holm 1 6. For the Unesco Courier : Svenska FN. For-

bundet, Vasagatan 15, IV 10123, Stockholm 1 Post-giro 18 46 92 (Kr. 18). SWITZERLAND. Allpublications: Europa Verlag, 5 Ramistrasse, Zurich.Librairie Payot, rue Grenus 6, 1211, Geneva 1 1,CCP. 12-236 (Fr. S. 12.-) TANZANIA. Dar-es-SalaamBookshop. P.OB. 9030 Dar-es-Salaam. THAILAND.Suksapan Panit, Mansion 9, Ra|damnern Avenue, Bangkok.(37.50 bäht). -TURKEY. Librairie Hachette, 469 IstiklalCaddesi, Beyoglu, Istanbul. UGANDA. Uganda Book¬shop. P.O. Box 145, Kampala. SOUTH AFRICA.All publications: Van Schaik's Bookstore (Pty). Ltd.,Libn Building, Church Street, P.O. Box 724, Pretoria.For the Unesco Courier (single copies) only: CentralNews Agency PO. Box 1033, Johannesburg. UNI¬TED ARAB REPUBLIC (EGYPT). Librairie KasrEl Nil, 38, rue Kasr El Nil, Cairo. Sub-agent: La Re¬naissance d'Egypte, 9Sh. Adly-Pasha, Cairo. UNITEDKINGDOM. H.M. Stationery Office, P.O. Box 569,London, S.E.I., and Government Bookshops in London,Edinburgh, Cardiff, Belfast, Manchester, Birmingham(20/-). UNITED STATES. Unesco PublicationsCenter, P.O. Box- 433, New York, N.Y. 10016

($ 5). U.S.S.R- Mezhdunarodnaja Kniga, Moscow,G-200. YUGOSLAVIA. Jugoslovenska Knjiga, Te-razije, 27, Belgrade; Drzavna Zaluzba Slovenîje MescniTrg. 26, Ljubljana.-

THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS

The wide-eyed glance of the young woman in our photo is reflected, notin a mirror, but in a "memory plate" from a Siemens computer. Its shiny,nickel-iron surface, composed of 3,150 cells, can record and recall up to10 million units of information per second. After an initial obsession withtechnological forecasting, futurology seems to be turning more and moreto a scrutiny of man's social future. Dare we hope that the machine willbe reduced to its proper proportions a mute reflection of human genius?

Photo Siemens