{"id":31,"date":"2011-12-09T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-09T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"\/Info\/blogs\/esri-insider\/archive\/2011\/12\/09\/Geography_3A00_-The-Big-Picture.aspx"},"modified":"2011-12-09T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-12-09T17:00:00","slug":"geography-the-big-picture","status":"publish","type":"insider","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/insider\/geography-the-big-picture","title":{"rendered":"Geography: Seeing the Big Picture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Geography has at least one thing in common with other disciplines: it has become fragmented. As our world has become more complex, science has responded by becoming narrowly focused. Thousands of very smart people are making remarkable discoveries in their own disciplines. But who is looking at the big picture?
\nIt\u2019s only logical. When life gets complicated, we often tend to focus on the little things. It helps us deal with being overwhelmed. But at some point we need to take a step back and realize that we can\u2019t understand an entire forest if we\u2019re addressing issues one tree at a time.
\nWe\u2019ve done an admirable job examining and understanding a multitude of component pieces that make our planet work. Now our grand challenge is to integrate all this knowledge so we can understand the \u201cbig picture.\u201d
\nHow do we put all of the pieces back together again so that we can understand the whole? How do we defragment geography?
\nIn the upcoming Winter 2011\/2012 issue of ArcNews<\/em>, Jerry Dobson suggests that we already have the ideal tool for the job: the macroscope.
\n

\"You\u2019ll
You\u2019ll be able to read Dobson\u2019s \u201cThrough the Macroscope\u201d in ArcNews later this month.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/em><\/em>You may remember Dobson\u2019s article \u201cBring Back Geography!<\/a>\u201d from the Spring 2007 issue of ArcNews<\/em>. Tom Miller, editor of ArcNews, often cites this as \u201chands-down the most popular article that has been published in this magazine during my 17 years as editor.\u201d Tom was excited to work with Dobson on a second article which, like the first, stresses the importance of geography\u2014a subject that has itself become somewhat of an endangered species. \u201cIn this article,\u201d notes Miller, \u201cDobson takes his concerns about the demise of geography to the next level.\u201d
\nCiting the work of Jo\u00ebl de Rosnay<\/a>, an early proponent of systems thinking, Dobson argues that the future of geography is something called \u201cthe macroscope\u201d\u2014a framework for assembling large amounts of environmental and human knowledge so that we can get a truly geographic understanding of our world.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have in our hands a new scientific instrument as powerful as any that have come before it, including the microscope and the telescope. Collectively, GIS, GPS, satellite remote sensing, and popular geographics constitute a macroscope that allows scientists, practitioners, and the public alike to view the earth as never before.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Geospatial technologies are the unifying force that can bring together fragmented data and disciplines into a common framework. Collating and combining all the little discoveries is the next scientific frontier. It\u2019s where the next big discoveries will be made\u2014by enticing people to view old questions in new ways\u2014and dramatic new insights are likely to result from this.
\n\u201cThis geographically enabled macroscope \u2026 allows humans to visualize earth processes extending over vast regions or even the whole globe while still maintaining the finest measurable detail,\u201d says Dobson. \u201cClearly, there is much left to discover, and our community is in an ideal position to advance the macroscope and support or lead the coming revolution in science theory.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe macroscope is here today, and science is already changing in response to it. We are entering a new scientific era that may be every bit as exciting and enlightening as the revolutions prompted earlier by the microscope and telescope. Surely our professional lives will be richer, and science itself will gain, if we, who know the marvelous instrument best, insist on using it ourselves to tackle the greatest mysteries of our time.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dobson\u2019s article \u201cThe Macroscope: Geography\u2019s View of the World\u201d will appear in the Winter 2011\/2012 issue of ArcNews<\/em>. If you are an ArcNews <\/em>subscriber in the United States, you should receive your copy in the mail on or around December 23rd, 2011. The Winter 2011\/2012 issue will be available online <\/a>the following week.
\n(Update, 27 December 2011: Dobson’s article in now available online here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","castos_file_data":"","podmotor_file_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[275982],"tags":[276232,276462,165252,241,276512,276522,276532],"class_list":["post-31","insider","type-insider","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vision","tag-arcnews","tag-geographic-information-systems","tag-geography","tag-gis","tag-jerry-dobson","tag-joel-de-rosnay","tag-the-macroscope"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nGeography: Seeing the Big Picture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/insider\/geography-the-big-picture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Geography: Seeing the Big Picture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Geography has at least one thing in common with other disciplines: it has become fragmented. 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