Well if the issue turned to be philosophical, let us do philosophy.
Our understanding of any phenomenon necessarily passes through the
models we conceive and the mechanistic is only one of them. We must
be aware of that. The Systemic modelling which was developed to
model biological phenomenons is also a product of human mind. The
issue here is not that our thinking on nature is too much anthropo-
centric because anything that comes out of us can only be human-
made models.
The real issue is more to be aware of the relative limitations of
the various models and to try to stay aware of the fact that models
and reality are always distinct.
A good reading on the subject (although it is in management science
and not on evolution) is:
Morgan Gareth, 1986. Images of Organization. Sage Publications Inc.,
Beverly Hills, Ca, U.S.A.
The author is actually professor at York University, Toronto. He
develops the idea that all the models we develop and use to understand
the reality have their explanation power and their severe limitations.
And that often the ability of one to understand reality lies in his
or her ability to use simultaneously various models even at the cost
of paradoxical results and that doing that, you only start unders-
tanding the true complexity of reality and you improve your chances
to behave correctly (according to human standards obviously). Morgan
call this process of overlaying several models to the same piece of
reality and of creating new models to add to the generally available
models: Imaginization. It gives a better idea of the relativity of
all this debate. Human brain, capacity of imagination are still all
we have to think on ourselves and on the world and it is not all that
bad. Isn't it?
Robert Beauregard
NZ Forest Research Institute
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: : Evolution, and other contentious issues!
Author: Norm Cimon <ncimon@ednet1.osl.or.gov> at tawa
Date: 15/11/95 01:52 PM
Since this has turned philosophical, I'll throw in my own two
cents. Nothing in nature is "mechanical" if we accept the notion
of evolution. A mechanical device is implicitly designed for
some purpose, so there has to be a designer. The most revealing
part of our total absorption with the idea of the machine, an
entirely human creation, is that we apply it so liberally to
every aspect of organic life. Perhaps this is to be expected,
that we would attempt to explain everything in terms of our own
creations, but there's a lot of baggage that travels along.
--
Shelley Cimon - Oregon Hanford Advisory Board | Tel: (503) 963-0853
Norm Cimon - Forestry & Range Sciences Lab | Fax: (503) 963-0853
La Grande, Oregon
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