Note: Provided for self-education purposes only.
In considering at last the social role of science and technology, many natural scientists, especially physicists and biologists, have severely criticised the negative impact of security measures and proprietary barriers on the free exchange of all ideas, experiments and results created in laboratories and institutes. A similar stand has not yet been taken by those studying the future.
Yet all branches of forecasting are strongly affected by the ‘factor S’ (S for secrecy), because it puts deliberate obstacles into the field of vision; worse yet it may oblige those who are ‘in the know’ to publish half-truths because they are forced to leave out a decisive piece of information.
Imagine a panel of specialists working on a comprehensive study about the present and expected future energy resources of a nation. Among them might be those who have inside knowledge of some decisive breakthrough. They are immediately faced with the problem of how they should discuss the matter, or indeed if they should discuss it at all. They must weigh up the importance of their obligations to the community and to their employers, and they must decide whether to put their name to a survey they know to be partly wrong.
So as to avoid this situation the organisers of the Inter-departmental Energy Study initiated by John F. Kennedy in 1963 decided not to invite any industrial personnel. This was a realistic but quite unsatisfactory way out, because it made the reading of the resulting forecasting study a frustrating experience. Anyone familiar with the field knew the information about important progress known to corporate industry was not mentioned.
With the growing seriousness and importance of forecasts the ‘factor S’ gains in significance. For many years there has been uneasiness about the widening spheres of military and industrial secrecy caused by the existence of conflicting interests and the design of surprise strategies. Now with the growth of future oriented design for civilian systems we must begin to worry about ‘civilian secrecy’. Apparently innocuous information when seen as part of a future system acquires an enhanced importance. Such information might involve an airport, a new town, or a new university. Those involved in any of these operations will very probably have a strong interest in one single ‘alternative future’, and might try to hide data, which might be used by the supporters of an opposite scheme. In such a case it is power rather than truth and common interest that decides what information will be communicated to all and what will finally be decided.
It may be of course, that the results of secret or semi-secret futures research are in fact ‘unsuitable for public debate’, and that therefore these fears are exaggerated. But in any case it is time that those involved in futures research began discussing this shadow thrown over their work, which is growing.
Source
McHale, John (Ed.). Futures Journal, March 1970, IPC Business Press Ltd., Surrey [England], p. 4.