About Loops behind the News
The graphic that welcomes you to Loops behind the News depicts a scientist of the mind in conversation with a scientist of the Earth. We are each familiar with different types of theories and data, and trained in different ways of seeking truth. And we have found, across 14 years of collaboration, that our differences have often led us to construct an idea or understanding together that neither of us could have formed on our own.
For the last eight years, our collaboration has focused on how people think and learn about feedback loops – systems in which a nudge to the system kicks off either a reinforcing or a counteracting response in the system. How humans think and learn about feedback loops is a fascinating and woefully under-researched intellectual puzzle. But it's also profoundly important, because so many of the existential challenges facing humankind in the 21st century are underlain by feedback loops, as are many of the most promising solutions.
Some of our most consequential insights were initiated by something in the news. Feedback loops show up across the news from businesses seeking to catalyze growth to environmentalists seeking to moderate growth, from neuroscientists reporting newfound loops to analyses of cultural trends underlain by loops. Our recent conversations have included political polarization, drug addiction, and wildfires. But it's not all gloom. We have found reasons for hope in loops that offer relief from chronic pain, or fill unmet human needs, or build a groundswell of resistance to autocracy.
Our collaborative relationship is a type of feedback loop. Tim's new insights are both causes and consequences of Kim's new insights. And Kim's insights are both causes and consequences of Tim's insights. Over many cycles, the turning of this feedback loop has prepared us to perceive and describe feedback loops acting in a wide range of contexts, where other writers seem not to have pointed them out. This substack is an invitation to join our conversations.
Is this substack for you?
Do you ask "Why?" a lot? Are you curious about why things in the world happen the way they do, and refuse to accept that the world “just is the way it is"? Confronted with a problem, do you want to know what are the underlying causes? And what might happen next? If you are such a person, feedback loop thinking can offer you a powerful way to think about causes and consequences.
Do you feel a burst of joy when you have a new insight or figure something out? Do you like detecting patterns, finding things, seeing connections, and putting things together that would not normally be juxtaposed? Feedback loops are a recurring pattern in the natural and human-made world, and learning to see new instances of this pattern opens the door to new insights.
Do you believe that the world can be explained – although humans don't yet have explanations for everything – and that the quest for explanations that stand up to scrutiny is one of the great endeavors of Homo sapiens? If that is you, feedback loops offer a genre of explanations that can help make sense of surprisingly fast changes and of stubborn resistance to change.
Do you face knotty problems? The types of problems that make you feel that things are spiraling out of control or like you are stuck in a rut are often underlain by feedback loops. Feedback loop thinking can help you figure out where and how to tackle such problems.
If this is you, we welcome you to join our conversations about feedback loops.
Who are we?
Loops behind the News is the product of an unusual collaboration between an observer of the natural world (Kim) and an observer of the mind (Tim). Kim is retired from being a Research Professor at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. Tim is a Professor of Psychology at Temple University
Kim spent her early career unraveling tectonic and sedimentary processes that have shaped the seafloor. Tim built his early career researching human perception of objects and events. In mid-career, we each gravitated (from opposite directions) towards researching how novices and experts think and learn about the Earth and environment. Our interest in feedback loops began with feedback loops that drive climate change. From there, our attention expanded to cover the entire realm of feedback loops – especially those that offer threats or opportunities for humans.
We have been collaborating since 2011, focusing on feedback loops since 2017. Our ideas have crystallized through a series of Aha! Moments about feedback loops and how people think about feedback loops, which you can read about here.
Where to start?
If you know very little about feedback loops, you could start with our introductory posts on What are feedback loops? and Why should I care about feedback loops? If you already know the basics, jump right in and start reading our timely posts about feedback loops in the news, feedback loop education, and the psychology of feedback loops – or visit our archive.
Why subscribe?
Subscribers receive each new post as an email immediately after we publish it. Alternatively, you can always read any or all of our posts on-line without subscribing by clicking the “Read in your browser >” option that appears when a non-subscriber accesses any part of our substack. Subscribing is free of charge.
Acknowledgements:
Many of the ideas in this substack emerged in the context of grants for Supporting Feedback Loop Learning in Natural and Social Science Courses, from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) program at the U. S. National Science Foundation, awards number 2141939 and 2142010. We thank the taxpayers who funded the IUSE program, the program officers and peer-reviewers who believed in the project, and our collaborators, Alexandra Davatzes, Logan Brenner, Mansi Shah, Courtney Sheckler, and Rebekah Banerjee. Publications and curriculum materials from the project are linked from the Fostering Feedback Loop Thinking webpage on the Teach the Earth website.
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