Do you ever feel completely overwhelmed when you're faced with a complex problem? Well, I hope to change that in less than three minutes. So, I hope to convince you that complex doesn't always equal complicated. So for me, a well-crafted baguette, fresh out of the oven, is complex, but a curry onion green olive poppy cheese bread is complicated. I'm an ecologist, and I study complexity. I love complexity. And I study that in the natural world, the interconnectedness of species.
当你面对着一个复杂的问题时 你是否曾经觉得很不知所措? 我希望能在三分钟内为此做些改变。 因此,我希望说服你其实复杂 并不总是繁杂。 对我来说,一个刚出炉的精心烘培法国面包 是复杂的, 但是咖喱绿橄榄罂粟洋葱奶酪面包 是繁杂的。 我是一个生态学家,我研究复杂性,我爱复杂性。 我研究自然界中,物种彼此之间的关系。
So here's a food web, or a map of feeding links between species that live in Alpine Lakes in the mountains of California. And this is what happens to that food web when it's stocked with non-native fish that never lived there before. All the grayed-out species disappear. Some are actually on the brink of extinction. And lakes with fish have more mosquitos, even though they eat them. These effects were all unanticipated, and yet we're discovering they're predictable.
这是一个食物网 或者是一张食物链关联图 描述了加州高山湖的物种关系。 而这是食物网现在的样子 非原生的鱼类大量涌入后 所有灰色的物种消失了。 有些濒临绝种。 有鱼的湖会有更多蚊子,虽然鱼会吃蚊子。 这些影响都是预想不到的, 但我们发现他们是可被预测的。
So I want to share with you a couple key insights about complexity we're learning from studying nature that maybe are applicable to other problems. First is the simple power of good visualization tools to help untangle complexity and just encourage you to ask questions you didn't think of before. For example, you could plot the flow of carbon through corporate supply chains in a corporate ecosystem, or the interconnections of habitat patches for endangered species in Yosemite National Park. The next thing is that if you want to predict the effect of one species on another, if you focus only on that link, and then you black box the rest, it's actually less predictable than if you step back, consider the entire system -- all the species, all the links -- and from that place, hone in on the sphere of influence that matters most. And we're discovering, with our research, that's often very local to the node you care about within one or two degrees. So the more you step back, embrace complexity, the better chance you have of finding simple answers, and it's often different than the simple answer that you started with.
所以我想要分享几个想法 关于在自然界学到的复杂性 或许可以沿用到其他问题。 首先,视觉化工具所带来的简单力量 可以帮助我们理清复杂的关系 并且引导你思考你从未想过的问题。 例如,你可以在图中找出相似处 在生态系统中的一堆链接中 或在优胜美地国家公园 标出濒绝物种栖息地的关系。 其次,如果你想要预测 物种间彼此的影响, 如果你只专注那个链接, 你就会忽略掉其它的信息, 但是你会更难做出推测 如果你退回上一步,纳入整个系统,包括所有物种、关联 从这里着手 把焦点集中在相关的影响范围效果会更好。 而我们在研究中发现 人们通常只关注非常靠近目标附近的一些内容 一到两层左右。 所以你退的越多,并广纳复杂, 你就越有机会找到简单的答案, 而且是和你起先着手的简单答案不同。
So let's switch gears and look at a really complex problem courtesy of the U.S. government. This is a diagram of the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan. It was front page of the New York Times a couple months ago. Instantly ridiculed by the media for being so crazy complicated. And the stated goal was to increase popular support for the Afghan government. Clearly a complex problem, but is it complicated? Well, when I saw this in the front page of the Times, I thought, "Great. Finally something I can relate to. I can sink my teeth into this."
现在换个角度,用美国政府来看 真正复杂的问题。 这是美国对阿富汗镇暴策略的示意图。 几个月前出现在纽约时报头版 马上被媒体嘲笑着 因为这张图表实在是太过复杂。 而他们的目标是为了要得到声援 对阿富汗政权的声援。 这很明显的是个复杂的问题, 但它繁杂吗? 我看到报纸的这篇头版时, 我心里想着,“太好了,总算有类似的东西了。 我可以拿出来大讲特讲。”
So let's do it. So here we go for the first time ever, a world premiere view of this spaghetti diagram as an ordered network. The circled node is the one we're trying to influence -- popular support for the government. And so now we can look one degrees, two degrees, three degrees away from that node and eliminate three-quarters of the diagram outside that sphere of influence. Within that sphere, most of those nodes are not actionable, like the harshness of the terrain, and a very small minority are actual military actions. Most are non-violent and they fall into two broad categories: active engagement with ethnic rivalries and religious beliefs and fair, transparent economic development and provisioning of services. I don't know about this, but this is what I can decipher from this diagram in 24 seconds.
来吧,全世界有史以来第一次 要把错综复杂的图表变成有条理的关系图。 圈起来的症结点是我们试图想要去影响 对政府的支持声浪。 因此,我们可以看,第一层,第二层 第三层与结点间的关系 然后去除图表中的四分之三没有在范围里的影响。 在这个范围中 大部分的结点是不可动的,如险峻的地势 少数是军事行动。 大部分是非暴力的,并且可分为两大类别: 道德抗争与宗教信条的激烈交战 与公平、透明的经济发展 和供应服务。 我不知道这些是什么,可是我能在24秒内通过图表 分析出这些东西。
When you see a diagram like this, I don't want you to be afraid. I want you to be excited. I want you to be relieved. Because simple answers may emerge. We're discovering in nature that simplicity often lies on the other side of complexity. So for any problem, the more you can zoom out and embrace complexity, the better chance you have of zooming in on the simple details that matter most.
当你看到一个像这样的图表,你不需要感到害怕。 我要你觉得开心,感到松了一口气。 因为简单的答案会浮现。 我们发现在自然界里,复杂的反面 其实就是简单 所以对任何问题,你越是往后退,涵盖复杂, 你越是有机会聚焦 在重要的简单的细节上。
Thank you.
感谢各位。
(Applause)
(鼓掌)