I wrote a few weeks ago about scientific method and why I think it's the greatest invention of all time. I stand by that statement but would like to expand it slightly by pointing out what I believe to be its greatest flaw.

The power of scientific method ("science" for short) is that it provides answers. If you have a question and can think of an experiment you can test various things out and try to find a solution to your problem. Science's power is in breaking complex things down to manageable portions, learning about them, and then laboriously recombining them with the application of a bit of educated guesswork. Science rewards this kind of categorical thinking, breaking things down into small manageable components, because you can only make a sensible hypothesis when you're fairly sure you know everything important about a given element. The more specific your definitions are, the more accurate your generalisations will be.

Categorical thinking is enormously powerful. It allow us to tackle huge problems piece by piece and to learn things by taking a large number of small steps. The recombined knowledge allows us to make the kind of generalisations which underlie all technology. Where it falls down is that by treating the observable universe as something to be categorised and broken down it fails to take into account the systematic nature of things.

What do I mean by this? It's basically a "forest-for-the-trees" issue. You can break down a system into tiny fragments, study each minutely, and still not understand why it works. Categorical thinking tends to ignore the linkages between things, and between those things and other things, and that the connection between them is often more important for the functioning of the system than the composition of individual elements.

In addition categorical thinking often forgets that the divisions it makes are frequently arbitrary. In simple terms I can make a useful categorical distinction between my arm and my shoulder, but how do I really know where one ends and the other begins? Is it where the bones meet at the joint? Which bones? Where do the bones end and the ligaments begin? Are ligaments part of the arm or shoulder, or do they straddle both? More importantly, wouldn't it be better to think of my body as an integrated system rather than as a mass of components? Isn't that more helpful in understanding each individual part?

Of course, we use both systematic and categorical thinking all the time. We know that one is more useful than the other in a given circumstance. For example, in writing this essay I have to use a lot of categorical thinking, making arbitrary divisions, lest my meaning not be understood. That said, my original mental conception of it was more systematic, having evolved over a period of time without consciously separating any argumentative strands.

But although we use both types at various times, I believe that we have rather lost the knack of seeing things as whole systems, rather than banks of components. Much of this I believe can be traced back to the Enlightenment and more specifically the Industrial Revolution, where categorical thinking began to allow technology which provided dramatic benefits. We now live in towers and use electricity and drive cars, all products of categorical thinking, but the main problems we are grappling with are systemic ones.

Look at all the problems we're having with, for example, land degradation. These are the result of us thinking hard about a specific problem but not putting nearly enough thought into what effects our "solution" would have upon the rest of the system. Even worse, we're so entrenched in categories that we tend to think that the solution is more categories, more technology, more tinkering. If we stepped back and looked at things as a unified whole, of which we are a part, we might be able to live in a more sustainable and harmonious manner.

For example, consider the different land management regimes in Australia, the Aboriginal one and the European one, both of which I've had some exposure to. Without getting too mystical about it, the Aboriginal population of Australia developed a deep understanding of the systems underlying the Australian ecosystems. Archaeological evidence suggests they did it the hard way, having eradicated a large number of species in the learning process, but by the time Europeans arrived they were living as part of the land, not as 'users' of it. If the population of one food species was low in a given year, it wasn't eaten until it had time to recover. The human population was nomadic (with the possible exception of one corner of Victoria), since nomadism was the most sustainable way to live in an energy-poor environment. Knowledge of the system was accumulated over lifetimes and saw everything as having an effect on everything else, no matter how minute.

When Europeans arrived they imported European ways of using land, including agriculture and pastoralism. They had no deep understanding of the systems of the Australian ecosystems, and consequently didn't realise the impact they were having on the land. Savanna started to turn into desert, salinity ruined more land, large numbers of species were wiped out and the Aboriginal population, who had been a vital part of the system, were massacred. Now we're having to face up to those problems that we have caused, and by the application of our categorical thinking are starting to realise the magnitude of our disruptiveness.

Politicians and scientists are advocating technical solutions to our problems - improve the efficiency of irrigation, maintain vegetation corridors, breed species in captivity. Although the aims are laudable, I believe that we can never truly restore the balance unless we develop and embrace a systemic view of things. Everything else is just window dressing, a bandaid on a land-mine victim, and is not capable of understanding what changes need to be made.
Categorical thinking has incredible reductionist power and has been a fantastic boon for the health and well-being of a large proportion of the world's population. But it provides quick and easy answers to specific problems, without taking into account the waves of influence that a single change will have upon the rest of the system. The sooner we start to reclaim the systemic view of the world and understand ourselves as part of it, the better. For my money it can't come soon enough.

I wrote a few weeks ago about scientific method and why I think it's the greatest invention of all time. I stand by that statement but would like to expand it slightly by pointing out what I believe to be its greatest flaw.

You would have dug my show. It was written for people like you as much as for people who don't get science.

One important thing, though; science != scientific method.

Inter-discipline communication is improving, and data is less and less condsidered in isolation. Information is more available in the scientific community than ever before. We have some way to go before we can reach the systemic view you advocate, but I think the great barrier for science is politics. Until governments take notice of science, until politicians are elected in part due to their understanding of the world as opposed to the religion they declare, scientists can only do so much.

Than, of course, there's the issue of major science needing to reach concensus in a particular field before it can meaningfully interact with another...

important thing, though; science != scientific method.
Yes, I know. In this essay I'm using "science" as an abbreviation, but in the other one on scientific method I make it clear what I'm on about.

It is a good thing that inter-discipline communication is improving. But the fact that we still divide it up into disciplines is symptomatic of the problem, I think. Politicians too suffer from category-blindness - they juggle this and that in a short-term way but don't really think about what it means for the human system as a whole.

this gets at the heart of so much that plagues us right now. I think nothing will change until this evolution of consciousness takes place. Maybe if people did more shrooms -- I don't know. Bill Hicks (the great American comedian) said that drugs are illegal for that reason. People would be aware. It's tough, Hicks says, to have an ARMS INDUSRTY when you realize we're ALL ONE. (He says it much funnier).

In the US, I believe a lot of this disconnect stems from the Bible, as well as from the mechanized lifestyle of the Industrial Rev. Adam and Eve's fall was a fundamental separation from the earth and from the binding force of life. We are all on our own, and, in fact, to return to nature would be a sin. It's a rejection of nature, and this philosophy, though unspoked, permeates.

Glad you liked it.

this gets at the heart of so much that plagues us right now. I think nothing will change until this evolution of consciousness takes place. Maybe if people did more shrooms -- I don't know. Bill Hicks (the great American comedian) said that drugs are illegal for that reason. People would be aware. It's tough, Hicks says, to have an ARMS INDUSRTY when you realize we're ALL ONE. (He says it much funnier).

In the US, I believe a lot of this disconnect stems from the Bible, as well as from the mechanized lifestyle of the Industrial Rev. Adam and Eve's fall was a fundamental separation from the earth and from the binding force of life. We are all on our own, and, in fact, to return to nature would be a sin. It's a rejection of nature, and this philosophy, though unspoken, permeates.

Thus far I've learned from my paltry three weeks of Life Drawing, categorical thinking is discouraged - at first. If drawing a living being, the idea is to literally draw everything at once, never focus on just one piece of the body puzzle. Then, when the whole is complete (or at least the general idea) you attack each single piece to refine and correct.

In short, you learn how to handle the whole, before you handle the individual.

Very interesting..I've been thinking about similar problems, but from the perspective of psychology - http://www.livejournal.com/users/fishbreeder/78689.html

Found this via Carlo's journal by the way..