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IN SEARCH OF
TIPPING POINTS
BRETT CHERRY joins IHRR
researchers on their quest to
explore the nature of tipping points
‘Tipping point’ is everywhere, from politicians
announcing the impending doom of the
financial economy to scientists explaining the
environmental devastation caused by climate
change. It’s in the newspapers, on the radio,
in scientific journals, popular magazines and
televised political debates. Tipping point is
joined by a sea of other buzz terms in wide
use today, but there seems to be something
about tipping point in particular that makes
it more than a mere metaphor. Tipping point
seems to touch on something fundamental
about our understanding of the world.
But what makes it tick?
What makes a tipping point
a ‘tipping point’?
Tipping point is often defined as an
instantaneous, and in some cases irreversible
radical change that usually comes without
warning. It has been thought of as being
connected to or caused by a series of smaller
changes that came before it.
But tipping points are not only physical, but
social as well, in how people talk, play, fight
or argue, in other words – interact – on a
number of different levels. What is it about a
word that draws us in, makes us understand
or at least think we understand what’s being
described? When we observe changes that
lead to melting in the arctic or a population
catching the flu from the spread of a virus,
why is it that words like ‘tipping point’
seem to get it right? Recently, there have
been a wide variety of things described as
tipping points, from climate systems to
financial and political systems and even
fashion trends.
All of them mostly unrelated except that
each involved a spontaneous, rapid, change;
an unpredictable, transformative turn
of events.
Tipping Points, a 5-year project funded by
the Leverhulme Trust, asks three very simple
questions: (1) Do tipping points actually exist
in the world? (2) Can they be understood