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There’s a continuing struggle between complexity and robustness in both evolution and human design. A kind of survival imperative, whether in biology, engineering, or business requires that simple, fragile systems become more robust. But the mechanisms to increase robustness will in turn make the system considerably…
We're often told that certain wholes are more than the sum of their parts. We hear this expressed with reverent words like holistic and gestalt, whose academic tones suggest that they refer to clear and definite ideas. But I suspect the actual function of such terms is to anesthetize a sense of ignorance. We say…
Flexible thinkers are able to shift through multiple perceptual positions at will. One perceptual orientation is what Jean Piaget called egocentrism, or perceiving from our own point of view. By contrast, allocentrism is the position in which we perceive through another person's orientation. We operate from this…
The analysis of Nature into its individual parts, the grouping of the different natural processes and natural objects in definite classes, the study of the internal anatomy of organic bodies in their manifold forms—these were the fundamental conditions of the gigantic strides in our knowledge of Nature which have been…
Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. Whatever the vexations or concerns of their personal lives, their thoughts can find paths that lead to inner contentment and to renewed excitement in living. Those who contemplate the beauty of the…
rhe systematic development of knowledge and technology that we all 'science' originated in the millennia of prehistory, and early vomen were among these first 'scientists'. They invented tools, accumulated knowledge about edible and medicinal plants, and 3robably discovered 'the chemistry of pot-making, the physics of…