Evolutionary analogies and sustainability: Putting a human face on survival

Futures

Volumn 28, Issue 2 SPEC. ISS., 1996, Pages 173-187

  Jeffrey, Paul ^a  

^a CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CONCEPTUAL APPROACH; HUMAN SURVIVAL; SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT;

EID: 0030460231     PISSN: 00163287     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/0016-3287(95)00088-7     Document Type: Article

References (46)

1. The United Nations document on Human Rights (Article 25/1 adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948 without a dissenting vote), provides some guidance for identifying such resources.
2. A search of the terms 'sustainable' and 'sustainability' in both science and social science journals shows a 12-fold increase in the number of published articles between 1983 and 1993.
3. L G Epstein, 'Production flexibility and the behaviour of the competitive firm under price uncertainty', Review of Economic Studies, 45, 1978, pages 251-261.
4. L Cosmides, 'The logic of social exchange: has natural selection shaped how humans reason?', Cognition, 31, 1989, pages 187-276.
5. G Kempis, Self Modifying Systems in Biology and Cognitive Science: A New Framework for Dynamics, Information and Complexity (London, Pergamon Press, 1991).
6. S A Kauffman, The Origins of Order: Self Organisation and Selection in Evolution (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1993).
7. M M Waldrop, Complexity: The Emerging Science of Order and Chaos (London, Simon and Schuster, 1992).
8. A H Bond and L Gasser (editors), Readings in Distributed Artificial Intelligence (San Mateo, CA, Morgan Kauffman, 1989).
9. L Gasser and M N Huhns (editors), Distributed Artificial Intelligence: Volume II (San Mateo, CA, Morgan Kauffman, 1989).
10. Both Adam Smith (Economics) and Ludwig von Bertalanffy (Systems Theory) were greatly influenced by natural system analogies as templates for structuring their ideas.
11. D Pimentel, T W Culliney, I W Buttler, D J Reinnemann and K B Beckman, 'Low input sustainable agriculture using ecological management practices', Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, 27(1-4), 1989, pages 2-24.
12. G W Barrett, 'Landscape ecology: designing sustainable agricultural landscapes', Journal of Sustainable Agriculture, 2(3), 1992, pages 83-103.
13. E C Lefroy and R J Hobbs, 'Ecological indicators for sustainable agriculture', Australian Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, 5(4), 1992, pages 22-28.
14. R K Olson, 'Integrating sustainable agriculture, ecology and environmental policy', Journal of Sustainable Agriculture, 2(3), 1992, pages 1-7.
15. R A Frosch, 'Industrial ecology - a philosophical introduction', Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the USA, 89(3), 1992, pages 800-803.
16. M T Hannon and J Freeman, The population ecology of organizations', American Journal of Sociology, 82(5), 1977, pages 929-964.
17. J A C Baum and S J Mezias, 'Competition, institutional linkages and organizational growth', Social Science Research, 22(2), 1993, pages 131-164.
18. D S Dendrinos and H Mullaly, Urban Evolution: Studies in the Mathematical Ecology of Cities (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1985).
19. R R Nelson and S G Winter, An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (Harvard, MA, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1982).
20. The Gaia hypothesis is perhaps the most popular example.
21. E R Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia (New York, Basic Books, 1974); and J Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1973).
22. E R Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia (New York, Basic Books, 1974); and J Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1973).
23. J Raz, 'Facing diversity: the case of epistemic abstinence', Philosophy and Public Affairs, 79(1), 1990, pages 3-46.
24. A similar distinction is expounded in R L Ackoff, A Concept of Corporate Planning (London, J Wiley and Son, 1970).
25. Y P Gupta and S Goyal, 'Flexibility of manufacturing systems: concepts and measurements', European Journal of Operational Research, 43(2), 1989, pages 119-135.
26. B Carlsonn, 'Flexibility and the theory of the firm', International Journal of Industrial Organization, 7(2), 1989, pages 179-203.
27. J C Sawhill and L P Silverman, 'Build flexibility - not power plants', Public Untilities Fortnightly, 111(11), 1983, pages 17-21.
28. R Aggarwal and L A Soenen, 'Project exit value as a measure of flexibility and risk exposure', The Engineering Economist, 35(1), 1989, pages 39-54.
29. R Pye, 'A formal decision theoretic approach to flexibility and robustness', Journal of the Operational Research Society, 29(3), 1978, pages 215-227.
30. E C Pielou, Ecological Diversity (New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1975).
31. T Dobzhansky, Genetics and the Origin of Species, 3rd edition (New York, Columbia University Press, 1951).
32. J Maynard Smith, The Theory of Evolution (Harmondsworth, UK, Penguin Books, 1958).
33. J Holland, Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems (Ann Arbor, MI, University of Michigan Press, 1975).
34. E R Pianka, Evolutionary Ecology (New York, Harper and Row, 1978).
35. M F Shakun, 'Policy making and meaning as design of purposeful systems', International Journal of General Systems, 7(4), 1981, pages 235-251.
36. Witness the ongoing debate sparked off by Dawkins' propositions regarding the role of altruism, in R Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1976).
37. S Haltiwanger and M Waldman, 'The role of altruism in economic interaction', Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organization, 21(1), 1993, pages 1-15.
38. H Margdi, Selfishness, Altruism and Rationality (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982).
39. If the analogy did not eventually break down, the two phenomena would be identical and there would be no need for the use of an analogy.
40. Insightful overviews of these issues can be found in M B Hesse, Models and Analogies in Science (Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 1970); and in M Bunge, Method, Model and Matter (Dordrecht, Reidel, 1973).
41. Insightful overviews of these issues can be found in M B Hesse, Models and Analogies in Science (Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 1970); and in M Bunge, Method, Model and Matter (Dordrecht, Reidel, 1973).
42. The difficulties encountered by psychologists when they seek to model human behaviour within economic settings bears witness to the complexity of motivations behind human decision making.
43. D J Merrell, Evolution and Genetics (New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966).
44. This point was satirically made by Engels (1940), when he commented that Darwin had shown that 'free competition, the struggle for existence, which the economists celebrate as the highest historical achievement, is the normal state of the animal kingdom' (emphasis in original).
45. P M Allen and J M McGlade, 'Modelling complex human systems: a fisheries example', European Journal of Operational Research, 30, 1987, pages 147-167.
46. R W Gerard, C Kluckhohn and A Rapoport, 'Biological and cultural evolution', Behavioural Science, 1, 1956, pages 6-33.