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Googled from information aesthetics “sophisticated information visualization showing the overlap between 161 different diseases by studying epidemiological data from 1.5 million patients”
I’ve mentioned before the book Natural Security. I’m finding much to return to in it while we develop the Defra work, and as I’ve 30 minutes or so while the wiki is down for running repairs I thought I’d write a little about Chapter 17 ‘The Infectiousness of terrorist ideology’by Kevin D. Lafferty, Katherine F. Smith, and Elizabeth M. P. Madin. This looks at how drawing analogies with epidemiology could help those seeking to combat terrorism. I paraphrase a little below, some of the main points.
1. Epidemiologists have rigorous standards of enquiry and analysis to understand the where infectious agents come from, their dynamics and how they propogate. Origins, geography, social contours of an outbreak? This approach to mapping and understanding a pathogen could, applied to terrorism, give a better handle on where and how to counter it.
2. Epidemiologists recognize that infectious agents emerge and evolve as a result of complex interactive processes between hosts, pathogens, and the environment in which they live.They deconstruct the key constituent elements of an infectious agent. This model helps to understand the phenomenon in its entirety and anticipate how it might evolve in the future. The same systemic conception of infectious agents can be adapted to understand the constituent elements of terrorism and their evolution
3. Epidemiologists view infectious agents as complex, multifaceted phenomena. Public health officials have thus recognized that success in controlling and rolling back an epidemic requires a carefully orchestrated approach. Again, there are lessons and insights to be learned here for orchestrating a global counterterrorism campaign.
In short, a rigorous application of a metaphor (much at the other end of the scale of the Wank Word Bingo of blue box, out of the sky, dancing with the envelope thinking which curses organisations). Using the detail of epidemiological approach to take a fresh look at issues of terrorism seems to me to be a highly practical use of metaphor as a real, almost physical, tool, rather than just a dreamy, floaty, story, language thing. It’s sending me off to Mary Midgley’s ‘Metaphors We Live By’ which I packed for Vienna and then unpacked with a perfect book spine and no curling pages.
I realise I meant to do Roger Deakin today. Next time.
