Scientists Discover Tipping Point for the Spread of Ideas

An anonymous reader writes "Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society. 'When the number of committed opinion holders is below 10 percent, there is no visible progress in the spread of ideas. It would literally take the amount of time comparable to the age of the universe for this size group to reach the majority,' said SCNARC Director Boleslaw Szymanski. 'Once that number grows above 10 percent, the idea spreads like flame.' The findings were published in the July 22, 2011, early online edition of the journal Physical Review E."

Re:Did ayone read the paper?

[shadowrat]

that was my first instinct too. then i thought about the converse. "population" is a matter of perspective. in 10 people, 1 person is 10% of that population. I didn't RTFA, but i'd guess if 5% of a large population holds a belief, it's not going to gain traction, but if those 5% somehow come together there is a subpopulation where 10% or more hold the belief and can influence the rest. I imagine it works better the more that subpopulation can separate itself from the larger culture. This scenario does play out over and over.

of course, taken to extremes you could say 1 person in a population of 3 is 33% of the population so everyone should adopt that person's beliefs. that doesn't happen so the size of the population must be part of the function.

or it's all bunk

Re:Percentage of geeks

[JoeMerchant]

How high is the percentage of geeks in the world? I'd say it's just over 10%, but then why isn't the world a better place, for example with functioning space programs?!

There are true geeks and poseur geeks, I think true geeks - with extraordinary talents and abilities - are closer to 1% of the total population. The other 9% you're talking about are just ordinary dysfunctionals who aspire to be geek-like, but never really amount to anything.

Re:Nonsense

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

The idea may only need to be held by a small segment of the population; for example, the scientists in a specialised sub-discipline(~hundred or so people), the major media commentariat in a particular country of locality(~few hundred people), the academics in a wider field, e.g. economics (~few thousand people), or perhaps the opinions in a small sized nation.

I give you a good example: In Ireland (pop. ~4 million), the entire country went on a mad house buying binge, with the skeptics being ridiculed, ignored, or told by the nation's premier to go and commit suicide. Here's a retrospective blog post [wordpress.com] on the brazen insanity of those days. You'd kind of have to be from Ireland to get it all, but I think the Shamrock Island video explains itself.

Now, if you added up the people during the Celtic Tiger Boom who worked in the financial, construction, and property sectors, you'd pretty comfortably reach 400,000 people; ~10% of the population. And I can assure you that most of these people were indeed true believers in the idea that property prices would continue to grow forever. For any that weren't, the slack was picked up by overpaid public sector workers with property fetishes and the usual talking heads in the media. Ireland is a small country, so it was relatively easy to reach a 10% level in many sectors.

I stress that the eternal house price boom was a deeply held and virtually unassailable belief during the Celtic Tiger years. Skeptics were laughed at and ridiculed publically. Here's a quote from the article:

"The hyenas have stopped laughing . . . each and every one of them was wrong. Instead, the price and supply of housing units has continued to break records."
--Mr Dunne addresses the Society of Chartered Surveyors dinner in 2006

This was a few months after the country's major bank, Bank of Ireland, introduced 100%+ mortgages for buyers, which revved prices upwards again after the beginning of a brief slowdown.

This post is getting a little parochial, but to bring this back to the topic, I remind everyone that Ireland is now a bankrupted state in IMF hands, devastated by a massive property bust and credit crunch, with 5 out of 6 banks nationalised. This instance of "true believers" tipping over public opinion lead to the ruination of an entire country. I think its a good example of how the spread of ideas and ideologies can be damaging to societies, and why it's so important to challenge this spread in the early stages, because believe me, it's impossible to reverse things once the wildfire takes hold of the wider population.

Re:Nonsense

[Runaway1956]

I've scrolled down this far, and no one has mentioned that the GOP and the Democrats each have that magic 10%. So - what does "science" have to say about opposing ideas, or ideologies, colliding? Hmmmm......

Re:I don't think so

[TheRaven64]

Since you read the paper, perhaps you can let the rest of us know what happens when 10% of a population each believe a contradictory idea. This seems like a far more common situation than 10% believing one idea and 90% having no opinion on the matter at all.