Harold Adrian Linstone (15 June 1924 – 8 July 2016) was a German-American
mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems.
Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change.
History
On ...
,
consultant
A consultant (from la, consultare "to deliberate") is a professional (also known as ''expert'', ''specialist'', see variations of meaning below) who provides advice and other purposeful activities in an area of specialization.
Consulting servic ...
,
futurist
Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abou ...
and University Professor Emeritus of
Systems Science at
Portland State University
Portland State University (PSU) is a public research university in Portland, Oregon. It was founded in 1946 as a post-secondary educational institution for World War II veterans. It evolved into a four-year college over the following two decades ...
and a specialist in
applied mathematics
Applied mathematics is the application of mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a combination of mathematical s ...
.
Biography
Harold Linstone was a naturalized citizen of the United States born in
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
, Germany in 1924. He received an M.A. from
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
and a PhD from the
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...
, both in
mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
.
Linstone worked for twenty-two years in industry, which included positions at
Hughes Aircraft
The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace and defense contractor founded on February 14, 1934 by Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American business magnate, record-setting p ...
and
Lockheed Corporation
The Lockheed Corporation was an American aerospace manufacturer. Lockheed was founded in 1926 and later merged with Martin Marietta to form Lockheed Martin in 1995. Its founder, Allan Lockheed, had earlier founded the similarly named but ot ...
since 1963, where he was Associate Director of Corporate Planning - Systems Analysis since 1968. He has been a consultant to many organizations, including the US House of Representatives, State of Alaska oil Spill Commission, Alberta Economic Development Commission, and UN Asian-Pacific center for Technology Transfer, as well as corporations such as
IBM and
United Airlines
United Airlines, Inc. (commonly referred to as United), is a major American airline headquartered at the Willis Tower in Chicago, Illinois. .
Later he worked as university professor of systems science at
Portland State University
Portland State University (PSU) is a public research university in Portland, Oregon. It was founded in 1946 as a post-secondary educational institution for World War II veterans. It evolved into a four-year college over the following two decades ...
, where from 1970 to 1977 he served as director of its Systems Science PhD Program and Futures Research Institute. He served as visiting professor at the
University of Rome, the
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...
, and
Kiel University
Kiel University, officially the Christian-Albrecht University of Kiel, (german: Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, abbreviated CAU, known informally as Christiana Albertina) is a university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in ...
in West Germany.
[Harold A. Linstone](_blank)
on www.isss.org. Retrieved 8 June 2008
Harold Linstone was editor-in-chief of the professional journal "
Technological Forecasting and Social Change
''Technological Forecasting and Social Change'' (formerly ''Technological Forecasting'') is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Elsevier which discusses futures studies, technology assessment, and technological forecasting. Articles foc ...
", which he founded in 1969, and which is now in its 56th volume. In 1993 to 1994 he served as president of the
International Society for the Systems Sciences
The International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS) is a worldwide organization for systems sciences. The overall purpose of the ISSS is:
:"to promote the development of conceptual frameworks based on general system theory, as well as their ...
. In 2003 he won the World Future Society's Distinguished Service Award.
He died on 8 July 2016 in
Pasadena, California
Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district.
I ...
.
Work
''The Delphi Method,'' 1975
According to Linstone and
Murray Turoff
Murray Turoff (February 13, 1936 – October 28, 2022 ) was a Distinguished Professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) who was a key founding father of computer-mediated communication.
Career
Turoff received his B.A. degree in Mathe ...
(1975) the concept underlying the
Delphi method }
The Delphi method or Delphi technique ( ; also known as Estimate-Talk-Estimate or ETE) is a structured communication technique or method, originally developed as a systematic, interactive forecasting method which relies on a panel of experts. The ...
is developed in
defense research
Defense or defence may refer to:
Tactical, martial, and political acts or groups
* Defense (military), forces primarily intended for warfare
* Civil defense, the organizing of civilians to deal with emergencies or enemy attacks
* Defense indust ...
by the
Rand Corporation
The RAND Corporation (from the phrase "research and development") is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is financed ...
sponsored by the US Air Force, which started in the early 1950s. The original goal of the research project was "obtain the most reliable consensus of opinion of a group of experts ... by a series of intensive questionnaires interspersed with controlled opinion feedback."
The most noted outcomes were published in the 1962 memorandum of the Rand Corporation, entitled "An experimental application of the Delphi method to the use of experts" by
Norman Dalkey
Norman or Normans may refer to:
Ethnic and cultural identity
* The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries
** People or things connected with the Norm ...
and
Olaf Helmer
Olaf Helmer (June 4, 1910 – April 14, 2011) was a German-American logician and futurologist. He was a researcher at the RAND Corporation from 1946 to 1968 and a co-founder of the Institute for the Future.
Biography
Born in Berlin, Helmer studi ...
, republished under the same title in ''Management science'' in 1963. The research had started a decade earlier, and was published earlier in the RAND Memorandum, entitled "The Use of Experts for the Estimation of Bombing Requirements." It concerned the application of "expert opinion to the selection, from the point of view of a Soviet strategic planner, of an optimal U. S. industrial target system and to the estimation of the number of A-bombs required to reduce the munitions output by a prescribed amount."
Linstone and Turoff (1975) further explained that "it is interesting to note that the alternative method of handling this problem at that time would have involved a very extensive and costly data-collection process and the programming and execution of computer models of a size almost prohibitive on the computers available in the early fifties. Even if this alternative approach had been taken, a great many subjective estimates on Soviet intelligence and policies would still have dominated the results of the model. Therefore, the original justifications for this first Delphi study are still valid for many Delphi applications today, when accurate information is unavailable or expensive to obtain, or evaluation models require subjective inputs to the point where they become the dominating parameters. A good example of this is in the "health care" evaluation area, which currently has a number of Delphi practitioners."
[Linstone and Turoff (1975, p. 10)]
''Multiple Perspectives for Decision Making,'' 1984
The 1984 book ''Multiple Perspectives for Decision Making,'' again co-authored with
Ian Mitroff Ian Irving Mitroff (born 1938) is an American organizational theorist, consultant and Professor Emeritus at the USC Marshall School of Business and the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California He is noted for a wi ...
, presented a multiple perspective approach for
decision making
In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be either rati ...
. This work was based on ideas of
Graham T. Allison
Graham Tillett Allison Jr. (born March 23, 1940) is an American political scientist and the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is renowned for his contribution in the late ...
, published in his ''Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis'' from 1971. Linstone (1999) explained:
Allison had seen that his analysis and modeling for corporate decision making only took into account some of the factors vital in the corporate decision process and Allison’s work examined the missile crisis from three different points of view, rational actor, organizational process, and bureaucratic politics. Each provided insights not obtainable with the others.[Harold A. Linstone (1999)]
The multiple perspective concept
, AC/UNU Millennium Project at ''cgee.org.br.'' Accessed 25.01.2015
Combined with his own experience in the aerospace industry, Linstone & Mitroff distinguished three types of perspectives for decision making. At first the Technical Perspectives (T), with the characteristics:
::*Problems are simplified by abstraction, idealization, and isolation from the real world around us. There is the implicit assumption that the processes of reduction and simplification permit "solution" of problems.
::* Data and models comprise the basic building blocks of inquiry. Logic and rationality as well as objectivity are likewise presupposed. Order, structure, and quantification are sought wherever possible. Observation and model building, experimentation and analysis are usually aimed at improving predictive capability. Validation of hypotheses and replicability of observations and experiments are expected. The attainment of elegant models and best or optimal solutions is particularly prized.
Second The Organizational Perspectives (O), which "focuses on process rather than product, on action rather than problem-solving. The critical questions are 'does something need to be done, and if so, what?' and 'who needs to do it and how?' rather than 'what is the optimal solution?' There must be a recognition that top-down imposition of solutions may well fail if there is no 'bottom-up' support."
And third the Personal Perspectives (P), which "views the world through a unique individual. It sweeps in aspects that relate individuals to the system and are not captured by technical and organizational perspectives."
Later Linstone further developed this approach to decision making, and presented it in his 1999 ''Decision Making for Technology Executives: Using Multiple Perspectives to Improve Performance.''
Publications
Books published by Linstone:
* 1975. ''The Delphi Method''. Edited with
Murray Turoff
Murray Turoff (February 13, 1936 – October 28, 2022 ) was a Distinguished Professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) who was a key founding father of computer-mediated communication.
Career
Turoff received his B.A. degree in Mathe ...
. Addison-Wesley.
online
* 1976. ''Futures Research: New Directions''. Edited with W. H. Clive Simmonds. Mass. : Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.
* 1977. ''Technological Substitution: forecasting techniques and applications''. Edited with Devendra Sahal. New York : Elsevier Pub. Co.
* 1984. ''Multiple Perspectives for Decision Making : bridging the gap between analysis and action.'' North-Holland : Elsevier Science Pub. Co.
* 1993. ''The Unbounded Mind : breaking the chains of traditional business thinking''. With
Ian Mitroff Ian Irving Mitroff (born 1938) is an American organizational theorist, consultant and Professor Emeritus at the USC Marshall School of Business and the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California He is noted for a wi ...
. New York : Oxford University Press.
* 1994. ''The Challenge of the 21st Century: managing technology and ourselves in a shrinking world''. With Ian I. Mitroff . Albany : State University of New York Press.
* 1999. ''Decision making for technology executives : using multiple perspectives to improved performance''. Boston : Artech House.
References
External links
Harold A. Linstone on www.isss.org.
The Delphi Method: Techniques and Applicationsonline.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Linstone, Harold A
1924 births
2016 deaths
20th-century American mathematicians
21st-century American mathematicians
American systems scientists
Portland State University faculty
German emigrants to the United States
University of Southern California alumni
Presidents of the International Society for the Systems Sciences