The Cognitive Landscape.

Scientific thought as we know it today, is based upon the assumption of an objective, external world. This conviction is supported by a rationale that calls upon mechanical laws of causal efficacy and determinism. Fundamentally, the correspondence between the hypotheses and their predictions through experimental research build the empirical success of Science. Nature, however, does not conform to the conditions required by a classical thermodynamic theory in which a physical state irreversibly evolves from its most probable, uniform, inert and unchangeable macroscopical precursor. The reductionist approach applied to ecology has shown limitations within its own domains of excellence. The homeostatic balances directed by determinism are often accompanied by unforeseeable instabilities where the dissipation of energy becomes the source of new macroscopic structures (May 1974 1976 1986 Kauffman 1993 Prigogine and Stengers 1984. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]