From: gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: The Criterion for Ecocentrism
Distribution: world
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 92 03:48:22 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <1992Nov8.235118.16861@meteor.wisc.edu> tobis@meteor.wisc.edu writes:

 > Catastrophe Theory is one among a venerable serquence of perfectly
 > interesting results in theory of continuous dynamic systems that
 > for some reason has been blown out of all proportion by people who have
 > limited understanding of it. The most notable of these have been
 > cybernetics, general systems theory, catastrophe theory, and chaos theory.
 > A good diagnostic tool for determining whther the person mentioning the
 > results actually understands them is whether they use capital letters,
 > e.g., Catastrophe Theory, as if a few interesting theorems promised to
 > solve all remaining scientific, and perhaps even moral problems. The history
 > of these overblown popularizations has been an interest of mine for some time.
 > Another diagnostic of misuse of the theory is a constant mentioning of
 > the field, with very limited mention of its actual results.

Well, I must say your diagnostic technique fails somewhat when it focuses
only on whether someone has used capital letters or not, while ignoring
their further reference to Catastrophe Theory is merely a useful model
for monitoring environmental impacts. Whoever else might be blithering
on about solving all remaining scientific and/or moral problems, you
can surely direct such criticism at them, can't you?

Whether you want to plot it mathematically or not, or write volumes
about functions and other abstractions, the simple demonstration of
the theory is readily available in, for example, the case of a cart
gradually being overloaded with bags of wheat until *suddenly* the
wheels collapse. That is a catastrophe since now the point of the
cart is lost, and that system either has to be restored, or another
system deployed for transporting the grain.

In making an analysis, was it the first bag of wheat which brought
about the collapse, the last, or any one in between? That is, the
catastrophe is the result of stress brought about the impact of many
in themselves discrete events, none of which have the capacity to
predict the final outcome.

Management of any given system, then, merely takes into account as
many of the variables as possible which might bring about its collapse,
given that we want to maintain that particular system rather than using
another, perhaps more robust system. In the case of the planet's natural
ecosystem it is simply the case that we do not have access to another
system capable of supporting life here, so careful management of this
one becomes a priority, yes?

Is that too complicated for your silly BS Detectors to keep track of
without going berserk?

 > Historically, the trend started with the fascinating eccentric Norbert
 > Wiener, a brilliant mathematician and statistician who may be regarded
 > as the founder of the most mathematically sophisticated branch of
 > electrical engineering, i.e., statistical communication theory, a field

        [ . . . ]

 > trajectory. Physical systems described by such a relationship show
 > interesting behavior, though in practice it is the case that an assumption
 > involved in setting up the model is invalid in the region of the catastrophe.
 > That's about all I know about it.

Perhaps some of your number crunchers might like to get back to a few
basic principles of empirical science, instead of lashing out in such
endlessly verbose gobbledegook against people you regard as eccentric.
They may well be, but I trust they still live in a democracy where they
are free to speak without "scientific" blackshirts and thought police
invading their cloisters.

 > People really interested in chaos, rather than in repeating Gleick's
 > breathless and inexcuseable hype, are referred to _Does God Play Dice?_,
 > by Ian Stewart, a book written in a fine didactic style by someone who
 > actually understands the material. Many tenured professors in sociology
 > and other pseudosciences have taken to footnoting Gleick's blather as if
 > it actually had some obvjective content.

Sorry, but I have no problem with Gleick's examples. How he himself
might want to blather on about them is no more than a stylistic
aberration he might well be criticised for, without altering the fact
of the matter he has chosen to address.

I suggest it is your own view of "science", rather, that has lost its
focus. If you do actually want to take up any of the Social Sciences
in order to address what people say and do, please feel welcome to join
us. In this case, whether people may be "really" interested, are only
"somewhat" interested, or "not at all" interested, in anything you might
want to nominate bears some examination, doesn't it?

 > In case anyone is wondering, my BS detector is in red alert. 

Fine, I hope it deafens you every time it goes off. It certainly does
not affect me in any way, however you might like to believe we should
be fearful of such an idiotic proposition.

Does the frog in your pocket croak during class as well?

--
Gil Hardwick                                      gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au
Independent Consulting Ethnologist                            3:690/660.6
PERTH, Western Australia                                 (+61 9) 399 2401
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Newsgroups: sci.environment