XXXXXXXXXX9 Sagarin and Taylor Security Informatics 2012, 1:14 http://www.security-informatics.com/content/1/1/14 REVIEW Open Access Natural security: how biological systems use information to adapt...

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1435899205645967 1..9 Sagarin and Taylor Security Informatics 2012, 1:14 http://www.security-informatics.com/content/1/1/14 REVIEW Open Access Natural security: how biological systems use information to adapt in an unpredictable world Raphael D Sagarin1* and Terence Taylor2 Abstract In this article, we analyze biological evolutionary systems to develop a framework for applying lessons of natural adaptability to security concerns in society. Biological systems do not waste resources attempting to predict future states of an inherently unpredictable and risk filled environment. Rather, biological organisms utilize adaptability to respond efficiently to a wide range of potential challenges, not just those that are known or anticipated. Adaptability is a powerful, but often misused concept. Typically, dimensionless claims about adaptability, such as, “insurgents are more adaptable than us” are made without clear benchmarks against which to measure adaptability. Our framework for adaptability, which was developed over the course of several multi-disciplinary working groups of life scientists and security practitioners focused on what we can learn about security from biological systems, can be applied broadly to societal approaches to improving security. Here we outline the “rules of engagement” for natural adaptable systems, which state that evolutionary systems do not predict, plan, or perfect the development of biological organisms. Given these constraints, we then outline four nearly universal features of adaptable biological organisms: 1. They are organized semi-autonomously with little central control 2. They learn from success 3. They use information to mitigate uncertainty 4. They extend their natural adaptability by engaging in a diverse range of symbiotic partnerships For each of these attributes we identify how they work in nature and how we have failed to apply them in our responses to security concerns. Finally, we describe a pathway by which adaptable strategies can be incorporated into security analysis, planning and implementation. Keywords: Adaptability, Evolutionary applications, Biologically inspired security, Symbiosis Review The Editors of this Special Issue have acknowledged that much effort has been spent in developing informatics approaches to predicting security threats with little to show for it. One of the charges of this Issue, then, was to show how biologically inspired approaches might im- prove predictability. As a biologist and biological warfare expert, however, we argue the opposite, that unpredict- ability should the starting point of any discussion about how biological systems can aid informatics approaches to security. This is because the fundamental commonality * Correspondence: [email protected] 1Institute of the Environment and School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © 2012 Sagarin and Taylor; licensee Springer. T Commons Attribution License (http://creativeco reproduction in any medium, provided the orig between human security problems and security problems faced by the rest of the biological world is that risks in the environment are ubiquitous and unpredictable. Biological organisms have not responded to this un- predictability by wasting resources attempting to make predictions. Indeed, adaptable systems in nature haven’t proven their record of success by demonstrating a high percentage of predictions that turned out to be correct, but rather by surviving and reproducing for 3.5 billion years and by diversifying into tens of millions of extant species living in the coldest, hottest, deepest, highest and most unpredictable niches on Earth. They have all done this by mastering the craft of adaptability. Natural adapt- ability is fundamentally different from merely reacting to a crisis (which is too late) or attempting to predict the his is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative mmons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and inal work is properly cited. mailto:[email protected] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 Sagarin and Taylor Security Informatics 2012, 1:14 Page 2 of 9 http://www.security-informatics.com/content/1/1/14 next crisis (which is almost certain to fail, especially in species like humans when complex behaviors are involved). Adaptability controls the space between reac- tion and prediction, providing an inherent ability to respond efficiently to a wide range of potential challenges-not just those that are known or anticipated- as they arise in their environment. Although, “adaptability” is now being thrown around as a popular buzzword among various security agencies and analysts, this potentially powerful concept is treated rather carelessly. Guidance on exactly what adaptability is and how it can be adopted in practice has been lack- ing. It is often presented as an ultimate, but ill-defined goal to attain. For example, after a perceived failure in security operations, it is argued that the agency in charge “needs to become more adaptable” with little guidance as to what more adaptable would look like. Likewise, dimensionless claims about adaptability, such as, “insurgents are more adaptable than us” are made without clear guidelines of how to measure adaptability. Here we present a framework called “Natural Secur- ity”, that places adaptability at the heart of understand- ing, and mounting effective responses to security threats, whatever form they take [1-3]. Natural Security can be viewed as a set of analytical and prescriptive tools that are based in the recognition that the function of adaptability has fundamental roots that go back as far in Earth's history as life itself. By deeply examining life his- tory, including human evolution, we can discover proven solutions to surviving in a hostile and unpredictable world. These solutions have already been developed over 3.5 billion years of life history, but have largely gone un- examined in the analysis, planning and practice of secur- ity in modern human society. Insights from natural adaptive systems give us both clarity on our past survival as a species and guidance for dealing with unpredictable threats in the future. The concept of adaptability encom- passes a broad diversity of security solutions in nature and accordingly provides a single unified framework for analyzing and guiding responses to the unpredictable threats. The Natural Security framework can be used re- gardless of the approach to security, but it will be par- ticularly useful in an informatics context because—like the natural systems it was distilled from—it can improve its performance through a recursive process of trans- forming multitudes of observational data into ever more sharply defined responses to environmental change. We developed this framework from a multi-year, multi-disciplinary working group we initiated in 2005 at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthe- sis (NCEAS) that was fueled by a simple question: “what can we learn from biological organisms and evolution about how to be more adaptable to societal security con- cerns?” Participants in these discussions included life scientists from many fields including evolutionary biol- ogy, anthropology, psychology, network analysis and be- havioral ecologists, along with security analysts, first responders, military and public health experts. Because we are not informatics experts, we make no attempt here to design algorithms or present quantitative models to bear out our biologically inspired framework for adaptability. Nonetheless, our outsider perspectives means that we come with no preconceived agenda or favored informatics approaches. Rather we offer our key findings from an in-depth study of natural systems as an adaptable framework from which multiple types of approaches, including more effective data mining, “crowd sourcing”, and network analyses, can be built. Here we present this framework in three parts. First we discuss the key rules of engagement that all biological systems operate under. Then we drill down into how adaptable systems work, pulling out four interrelated concepts focused on: 1. How adaptable systems are organized 2. How they learn 3. How they use information to mitigate uncertainty 4. How they extend their adaptable capacities through symbiotic relationships Finally, we make recommendations as to how to apply these lessons and create adaptable security systems that closely mimic natural adaptive systems without forcing a complete reorganization of security infrastructure or violating common human ethical norms. Adaptable systems: the rules of engagement If there are rules (beyond elementary thermodynamics) under which biological evolution, and by extension the organisms that arise through evolutionary processes, works they amount to a prohibition against three “P’s”. That is, evolution doesn’t predict, doesn’t plan, and doesn’t perfect biological organisms. First, despite 150 years of modern evolutionary biol- ogy, biologists are almost never able to predict an evolu- tionary event beyond simple generalizations like “bacteria will evolve resistance to antibiotics”. Evolved adaptable organisms themselves don’t make predictions simply because the complex world of continually chan- ging and interacting biological organisms acting within the dynamic and networked matrix of biogeochemical stocks and flows that they live in is not predictable. At best organisms anticipate events that come in well defined cycles—thus, many organisms have strong “cir- cadian rhythms” that allow them to respond to light/ dark cycles and many coastal marine organisms move in anticipation of tidal rhythms. They may also use their keen sensory abilities and stored sensory observations to Sagarin and Taylor Security Informatics 2012, 1:14 Page 3 of 9 http://www.security-informatics.com/content/1/1/14 act in anticipation of unusual events as evidenced by wild and domestic animals responding to the 2004 Indian Ocean Boxing Day tsunami well in advance of humans living in the same area [4], but this is not pre- dicting an unknown future event. Making and respond- ing to predictions that are very unlikely to be correct is a waste of resources that are better spent finding food, avoiding predators and mating. The 2011 tsunami in Japan and its devastating effects on the nuclear power infrastructure, the Arab spring, and the outbreak of anti- biotic resistant E. coli in Europe were all threats to se- curity that were possible to anticipate (along with an almost infinite number of other security threats that did not come to pass during the previous year) but impos- sible to predict. It has been argued that all of the most destabilizing political, economic, and environmental events in human history have been unpredictable [5]. Second, there is no scientific evidence to support the notion that evolved biological systems are “intelligently designed” or planned in advance. There are numerous natural examples to illustrate this point, but one of the most striking is the ocean sunfish Mola mola. This large flattened fish slowly plies the surface waters of the Paci- fic sucking jellyfish through an undersized mouth, pad- dling with two flippers attached to a raggedly flat back end that looks as if the fish’s proper tail was bitten off. If some intelligent designer decided to create a fish, it would never make a Mola. Yet, despite its scant resem- blance to our common image of a fish, the Mola has sur- vived as a fish for millennia because it adapted to its environment through time and ultimately found a niche that no other organism had capitalized upon. An un- likely creature such as the Mola emerged because the process of evolution doesn’t tend toward any endpoint. It doesn’t try to make an eye or an immune system or a beautiful fish. Evolution proceeds by solving survival problems as they arise. Security systems in society, by contrast, are littered with meticulously planned designs—the Maginot Line comes to mind—that were entirely unable to solve emerging threats from the
Answered Same DayApr 02, 2021

Answer To: XXXXXXXXXX9 Sagarin and Taylor Security Informatics 2012, 1:14...

Neha answered on Apr 04 2021
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1. Read the article entitled "Natural Security
a. What is meant by the term "natural security"?
Natural securi
ty can be defined as a set of analytical and prescriptive tools which are based in the recognition that function of the adaptability includes fundamental roots which are as old as Earth’s history as life.
b. Describe the concept of "adaptability."
Adaptability is different from just reacting to a crisis or attempting to predict the next one as it controls the space present between reaction and prediction. It provides inherent ability to respond effectively and efficiently to a wide range of potential challenges.
c. Identify the four [nearly] universal features of adaptable biological organisms.
1) They are organized semi-autonomously with little central control.
2) They can learn from success
3) They use the information to mitigate uncertainty.
4) They extend the natural adaptability by getting engaged in a diverse range of relationships.
d. Discuss how we failed to apply them for security management.
As the biological world is changing continuously it becomes unpredictable for the biologists. There is no...
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