Brain power

Key concepts for making informed choices

The world abounds with claims about what works and what doesn’t, but as we’ve documented in numerous RealKM Magazine articles, many people fail to critically assess these claims. This results in people holding and transferring knowledge that isn’t evidence-based, leading to individuals and organisations making poor decisions.

To help address this problem, an alliance of over 20 researchers from 14 different fields has published a framework of “key concepts for informed choices” in an article1 in the journal Nature. The researchers hope that professionals and scientists in all fields will make use of the concepts.

The concepts are shown in Figure 1, and further information can be found in the Nature article.

Key concepts for making informed choices
Figure 1 (click to enlarge). Key concepts for making informed choices (source: Aronson et al. 2019).

Header image: A protest against genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in Vancouver. Some community groups claim that GMOs have health and other negative impacts despite the evidence saying otherwise. Source: Adapted from Rosalee Yagihara on Flickr, CC BY 2.0.

Reference:

  1. Aronson, J.K. et al. (2019). Key concepts for making informed choices. Nature 572, 303-306.

Also published on Medium.

Bruce Boyes

Bruce Boyes is a knowledge management (KM), environmental management, and education thought leader with more than 40 years of experience. As editor and lead writer of the award-winning RealKM Magazine, he has personally written more than 500 articles and published more than 2,000 articles overall, resulting in more than 2 million reader views. With a demonstrated ability to identify and implement innovative solutions to social and ecological complexity, Bruce has successfully completed more than 40 programs, projects, and initiatives including leading complex major programs. His many other career highlights include: leading the KM community KM and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) initiative, using agile approaches to oversee the on time and under budget implementation of an award-winning $77.4 million recovery program for one of Australia's most iconic river systems, leading a knowledge strategy process for Australia’s 56 natural resource management (NRM) regional organisations, pioneering collaborative learning and governance approaches to empower communities to sustainably manage landscapes and catchments in the face of complexity, being one of the first to join a new landmark aviation complexity initiative, initiating and teaching two new knowledge management subjects at Shanxi University in China, and writing numerous notable environmental strategies, reports, and other works. Bruce is currently a PhD candidate in the Knowledge, Technology and Innovation Group at Wageningen University and Research, and holds a Master of Environmental Management with Distinction and a Certificate of Technology (Electronics). As well as his work for RealKM Magazine, Bruce currently also teaches in the Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU) Certified High-school Pathway (CHP) program in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, China.

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