Science and Futures Thinking

The subtitle of this book promises that it is not only about philosophy ofscience but also about vision development. It is now time to live up to thispromise. We leave the terrain of ‘pure’ scientific knowledgeand tread into the field of visionary thought, although the idea thatscience and vision are distinct, separable categories is also scrutinisedhere. What we hope to show in this chapter is how vision-led science caninform and inspire evidence-based visions that can help safeguard asustainable future for all who live on this planet.

In the first section, we reflect on the role of science in society today andin the future. After all that has been said, the rationality project– of which science is a part – is critically examined oncemore. This leads us to conclude that while science has brought us valuableknowledge, it leaves us empty-handed as regards the insights and skills thatare needed to put scientific knowledge into practice. We review how thecurrent academic system has helped to discourage the transfer andimplementation of knowledge in society, and what may be done to improveit.

We continue by reviewing various ways to implement futures thinking inscientific practice, but not without first investigating what we mean by‘vision’. While we herald inspiring visions that stimulate usto take action and to design potential solutions to the challenges we face,we should avoid the trap of modernity, when ‘Vision’ was stillwritten with a capital ‘V’. In the end, such grandiose‘Visions’ often turn out to be disillusions. One way to findinspiring visions may be to develop scenarios that offer us ideas of more orless desirable futures. If a vision is powerful enough, it may even lead toa change in our worldview and trigger a paradigm change. We know that a newoutlook on reality that is captured in complexity thinking is thought tolead to (or already have led to) a system change in the field of science.Here we investigate whether this change remains limited to the scientificresearch practice or whether it is also needed or actually happening inscience education.