Just because

The Strategy Toolkit - November 2022 edition

Excerpt:  Strategy and Science / Technology, part one

Science, and its close complement, technology (or applied science), is arguably the greatest achievement of humankind.  Modern life as we know it would be inconceivable without the revolution in thought and action of a long line of scientists and their scientific-philosopher precursors.  The scientific method, now a universal language by which we think up new ideas (or hypothesise new theories) and then run a series of tests (or experiments) to see if the ideas hold any water (or are confirmed or not statistically), changed the world from that of the Dark Ages to that of the Enlightenment and beyond.

As Bertrand Russell concluded, “In the welter of conflicting fanaticisms, one of the few unifying forces is scientific truthfulness, by which I mean the habit of basing our beliefs upon observations and inferences as impersonal, and as much divested of local and temperamental bias, as is possible for human beings.”*

* Russell, B., “The History of Western Philosophy,” Unwin Hyman (1946): 789

Those with political, military, and/or economic power quickly realised what they could achieve through the use of science and technology.  In many contests, it was the deciding factor.  Therefore, we maintain that, for strategists, being able to harness the power of such objective truth, as opposed to subjective or ephemeral perception, is valuable, and studying the strategic aspects of science and technology is an endeavour well worth the time and effort.

In this chapter, we will examine three aspects of science and technology, highlighting insights for strategists:  the idea of science (how science emerged over time), the practice of science (or how scientific progress is made), and examples of strategies in science (namely, Silicon Valley, popular science, and survival under extreme conditions).  We will examine the wonders of the ancients, the near ancients, and the moderns, such as Eucharia Nwaichi’s courageous use of bioremediation in Nigeria and Roozbeh Jafari and Deji Akinwande’s use of graphene in the ubiquitous measurement of blood pressure.

Let’s get started.