Who we are emerges out of the dynamic interplay of what we are (the person), where we are (the situation), what we say we will do (intentions), and what we do (actions). Medicine has built a model of disease with a focus on the person in a hospital or a clinic and their intentions. In… Continue reading Worlds Far and Wide, Near and Close
Tag: Complex Adaptive Systems
The Systems Above
The 17th century poet, John Donne, famously wrote, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, A part of the main.” In reality, even an island is not an island - structurally or functionally. Islands are separated (or connected) - depending on perspective or purpose - to… Continue reading The Systems Above
Unknown Unknowns
Picture a late morning scene at a watering hole in Etosha National Park in Namibia. The sun is getting close to its apex position in the sky, its fierce rays pierce through the cloudless sky onto the ground. All types of animals from a family of majestic African elephants to a tower of leggy giraffes… Continue reading Unknown Unknowns
The Single Aim
Evolutionary biologist Leslie Orgel’s second rule of biology states that “evolution is smarter than you are.” Evolution and its mechanisms can explain much of the seemingly boundless complexity and organization evident in biological ecosystems. As I discussed in my last essay, biological evolution with its objective function of survival and reproduction driven by the processes… Continue reading The Single Aim
Problem of the Criterion
In the 1930s, the evolutionary biologist, Sewall Wright, developed the concept of the fitness (adaptive) landscape as a visualization of evolution. The fitness landscape, conceived as a topographic map that resembles a mountain range with peaks and valleys, described different phenotypes of an organism that can vary over a continuous range of genotypes. The vertical… Continue reading Problem of the Criterion
The dose makes the poison…
Stress is defined “as a process of altered biochemical homeostasis produced by psychological, physiological, or environmental stressors.” Etymologically, the word is derived from Latin, meaning “tight, compressed, drawn together.” Conceptually, it can be found in the physical sciences as early as the 17th century. In physics, Hooke’s law (F = -kX) states that the strain… Continue reading The dose makes the poison…
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