We seek to advance science. We are not simply an information- processing organization. Science, nevertheless, is concerned with all of existence and our Society is particularly interested in the grand theories that should instruct science and the application of science to human problems. This broad outlook presents us with its own set of problems. Science at the fringe is for less orderly than hard-core science.
Science seeks the exact while art seeks the ambiguous.
Only in an environment of tolerance can the grain be separated from the chaff and the grand harvest of success be reaped. We can rather easily agree with the idea of tolerance at this level of abstraction. Again, our specialist ways demand the rigor of a refereeing process and, to the extent that cores of knowledge have developed within SIGs and for specific general systems theories, that process may be applied. But new and initially developing ideas do not lend themselves to such processes. There the need for tolerance and respect sometimes demands great faith and our faith is not always rewarded.