Future Jobs Report: Response from Rohit Talwar

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Here’s a response from Rohit Talwar of Fast Future, to criticisms of their recent “Shape of Jobs to Come” report outlined in this blog, EvidenceMatters, HolfordWatch and Gimpy’s Blog. I have included the entire response unedited.

Personally, I don’t feel the main criticisms are adequately addressed. For example, he talks of “weak signals”, where there are few primary sources from which to draw information. However this is not the case  for the 20 jobs listed, where there is a huge amount of relevant information. Also, whether sources are referenced or not, copying and pasting text from websites is not “acceptable practice” in any field. Saying “we cannot accept responsibility for whether others have chosen to reprint material from the report without citing the original sources”, is not good enough, especially when these exerpts are used in the press release where no references are included.

Basing horizon scans on other horizon scans seems like a closed loop approach to me, cross referencing to give a mutual semblance of credibility. Anyway, I’ve made my case, over to Mr. Talwar.

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Thank you for your note outlining your concerns regarding ‘The shape of jobs to come’ report. I think the best thing to do is to explain the methodology we used – which is common for horizon scanning projects of this nature. The methodology is also outlined in the report, which I believe you have. For convenience, I have also pasted the relevant methodology section of the report below.

Nano-medics of the future: So Everything!

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Earlier this week I wrote about the shockingly bad “shape of jobs to come” report commissioned for the government funded Science: So What? So Everything campaign.

When an organisation set up for the promotion of science allows itself to be associated with a report they either haven’t read or haven’t understood, it indicates a fairly sorry state of affairs. What is the point of soundbites with no substance as presented on their website? If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that the main aim was to achieve media coverage by throwing neat, if wholly inaccurate, bite sized sensationalist chunks to the masses.

This attitude does so much harm. The point of a report like this should have been to tell young people that if you study science now, you can be involved in amazing things in the future. But what you need to do is show some science, even if it’s at the risk that some people wont understand. You want to capture the imaginations of the people with the potential to make a difference, at the same time as creating a media stir.

For example, take the nano-medic job. Well for a start, they’ll be called doctors, and if nanotech achieves a fraction of what people expect it to, it’ll be applicable to a wide range of specialisms. Neurologists will still be neurologists, it’s just that they might have some new tools to work with. They’ll probably be quite well paid, so I don’t need to conduct a survey to find out what proportion of the population think they will be well paid, as Fast Future did as one of the many pointless aspects of their research.

When most people think of nano-medicine, they think of tiny machines fixing parts of the body mechanically. This probably isn’t where the future lies (and if it did, the machines would never be sub-atomic).

One example of a possible application of nanotechnology in medicine, and one that is actively being researched, is the use of luminescent nanoparticles to locate cancer cells. The colour of light given off by nanoparticles depends on their size. That’s one of the great things about working on the nanoscale, this doesn’t happen with larger objects. So, you can coat a nanoparticle in a specific chemical which binds to cancerous cells, then pinpoint a tumour by locating the glow.

You can also target drug delivery, so that a potentially toxic drug affects only the afflicted part of the body, avoiding widespread side-effects.

It’d be easy enough to photoshop a picture of a glowing elbow to give it some punch. You can have your “nanotech makes cancer cells glow in the dark” headline for the press release. Tell kids to study physics, chemistry or medicine, and some of them will. So there you go. If I was being paid for this, I’d contact some researchers in the field, gather some primary references and compile it in a way that makes sense. As it is, a quick google search for “quantum dot cancer cells” found this article. I also found the video below as the first hit when searching for nano-medicine on YouTube. It’s accurate and relevant to what I’m saying… this doesn’t seem very difficult.

If Science: So What? are interested I am available to act in a consultancy role.

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Update 09:02, 22/1/10: Evidence Matters has published a piece on the FF report, looking into the social science methods used. They are particularly critical of the referencing of source material. Since my post yesterday, I have found 4 more cases of cutting and pasting from websites used in the list of 20 future jobs. That’s 6 out of 20. I really can’t be bothered finding where the rest came from…

Update, nano-medics of the future…

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“If a deadly virus starts spreading rapidly, few countries, and few people, will be prepared. Nurses will be in short supply. And as death rates rise, and neighborhoods are shut down, someone will have to guard the gates.”

This may be familiar to those of you who looked at the Science: So What page on future jobs, it’s the job description under the title of “Quarantine Enforcer”.

Earlier this week, I wrote a piece about the future jobs report, written by the futurist consultancy company Fast Future, as it claimed that sub-atomic devices will be used by nano-medics in the future (they won’t). Checking out the references in the original report also showed up some pretty shoddy work.

Since my last post, I’ve been checking out some more of the references.

Next to the detailed job description for Quarantine Enforcer, there is a single reference to a Forbes magazine article from 2006, which mentions quarantine enforcer as a possible future job. But there is also a link on the Forbes website to a list of jobs which might exist in 2026. They give the following summary;

“Are you prepared for the flu of the future? If a deadly virus starts spreading rapidly, few countries, and few people, will be prepared. That’ll be good for certain occupations. Nurses will be in short supply. And when people really start dying, and neighborhoods are shut down, someone will have to guard the gates.”

I don’t remember Forbes getting any credit in the press release…

It appears that Fast Future have, on at least 2 occasions, copied, pasted and superficially edited text from websites into a list of job descriptions which has subsequently been massively publicised. In both of the instances I have found, the references provided don’t directly point to the source of the text.

You should be angry about this. Fast Future were paid public money, and this report has been used to bolster their professional reputation. The report was published with a fanfare and publicly supported by the Prime Minister and the Science Minister, Lord Drayson. Of course I don’t expect them to delve into the detail, but I also don’t expect public money allocated to the promotion of science to be wasted like this.

The head of Fast Future, Rohit Talwar, tweeted (I prefer “twote”) yesterday;

“Fascinating range of coverage on the future jobs report – A Guradian misquote and use of the phrase ‘sub-atomic’ generated a lot of heat”

I offered him the chance to comment on my last blog, to which he replied;

“I saw your article. You have every right to say what you think. Explained our approach in the report – understand that some may not like it”

You’re right, Mr Talwar, I don’t like it at all.

Nano-medics of the future: So What?

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This week, I stumbled upon a page on the Science: So What? So Everything website describing some of the exciting career paths we might be able to follow using future technology. It’s based upon a report called “The shape of jobs to come” by consultants at Fast Future Research, and related stories have been reported by the BBC,  The Guardian, The Times, and The Telegraph (and maybe more). In at number 2 on the future jobs list was “nano-medic”;

Advances in nanotechnology for creating sub-atomic devices and treatments could transform personal healthcare so we would need a new breed of nano medicine specialists to administer these treatments.

Want to know more? Take a look at a story about the tiny robots changing surgery, and the people who build them, plus career information.

Stephen Fry, a supporter of the So Everything campaign, had this to say;

“This is a fascinating list of jobs. I’d go for the nano-medic first up – that’s exciting, really exciting. To be a pioneer, in the van of a new technology, and one that might deliver spectacular help and improvements to the world – yes please!”

But let’s take a look at the job description. Sub-atomic devices? Devices smaller than an atom? Now I acknowledge that there is some debate as to what will be possible in the future, and admit I’m always a bit wary of futurists’ predictions, but this is so utterly impossible it defies belief. Atoms consist of a nucleus a few femtometres in size (that’s one millionth of a nanometre, maybe someone can figure out the fraction of a width of a human hair…) surrounded by orbiting electrons. The nucleus itself is an unimaginably tiny fraction of the total volume of the atom.

The forces holding the nucleus together are huge, which is why we need particle accelerators to smash nuclei apart. The idea that you could rearrange the constituents of atoms to make a device is beyond ridiculous.

You may think I’m over doing it in my criticism, but the Science: So What? website was set up to promote science to lay audiences and to inspire kids. It’s important that it’s accurate. Initially, I just wanted to find where the idea of sub-atomic machines had come from, poke fun at it, and go about my business, but a little digging uncovered some interesting stuff.

Following the link for further details takes me to a page about a robotic surgical snake on the future morph website, with no mention of sub-atomic nano-devices to be found there or elsewhere on the site. In fact, many of the links on the So What? page are directed to pretty unrelated topics. This didn’t seem right, so I went to the source.

Fast Future Research produced a lengthy (149 page) report on the jobs of the future. I’ve had a scan through, but sadly can’t find any science. This is where the sub-atomic devices claim was repeatedly made, and subsequently reproduced in press releases and on the So Everything site.

In the report, they give a rundown what it might be like to work as a nano-medic, and again sub-atomic devices are mentioned. Next to the title, there’s a nice little academic style reference number, which I happened to track down. You might think that they had consulted someone working in the field of medicine, or nanotechnology, but actually the reference is a web page whose only mention of nano-medicine is this insightful nugget;

Nano-medic Practitioner

Nano-sized machines to deliver health. ‘Nuff said.

Later, in one of the appendices, the job is summarised again, with this reference, an article from Time magazine in 2000 listing top jobs for the future. Nano medicine isn’t one of them, but the plot thickens. Job number 3 on the So Everything list is this;

Pharmer of genetically engineered crops and livestock New-age farmers will grow crops and keep animals that have been genetically engineered to increase the amount of food they produce and to include proteins that are good for our health. Scientists are already working on a vaccine-carrying tomato and therapeutic milk from cows, sheep and goats.

which looks strikingly similar to part of the Time article

Pharmers.
New-age farmers will raise crops and livestock that have been genetically engineered to produce therapeutic proteins. Works in progress include a vaccine-carrying tomato and drug-laden milk from cows, sheep and goats.

I guess it could be coincidence… I only found this because I was digging on a specific point, but I suspect that there will be other parts of the report which are as flimsy under scrutiny. Certainly all the references I chased up were largely irrelevant to the points they were supposed to support.

In principle, I support the Science: So What? campaign, and it is important to think about the future of society and technology. But if it’s worth doing, do it properly and consult actual experts. Both Gordon Brown and Lord Drayson praised the report, but it appears nobody actually read beyond the shiny press release, and even that contains very dodgy science.

It’s pretty disappointing given that the public paid for it.

Order Out Of Chaos

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Last night, BBC 4 showed The Secret Life of Chaos, one of the best science documentaries I’ve seen for a long time. In it, they showed the BZ reaction, a chemical reaction resulting in travelling bands of colour- a pattern arising from disorder. I’ve included a brief explanation below, but frankly, this is just cool.

This is a type of autocatalytic reaction. The reaction starts at random points in the chemical mixture, but there is a kind of feedback so that this triggers more reactions at the same place. This spreads out in all directions so you end up with a circular wavefront.

Usually, chemical reactions take place in one direction- A and B react to make C. However, in some special cases, the reaction can oscillate between two states. This can be seen as a mixture changing colour, then changing back in a repeated cycle. So, after one wave has passed through the mixture, other waves follow as the reaction oscillates between two states.

This is an example of self-organisation, a process whereby patterns emerge from disordered systems. It happens everywhere, from the nano scale to the formation of the universe. If you’re really interested, read Philip Ball’s recent Nature’s Patterns series of books (OUP).