From its humble beginnings geology has always been a systems science. It was Charles Darwin who brought those systems to life.
In the year of his passing (1990) John Bowlby released his last great work: A biography of Charles Darwin’s life and times entitled Charles Darwin—A New Life. Interestingly in a chapter entitled Geology Carries the Day 1832–1836, Bowlby points out that Darwin was first and foremost a geologist before becoming a famous naturalist, a role is known for today. “So used are we to thinking of Darwin as the supreme biologist,” reveals Bowlby, “that it is not easy to picture him during the [sailing ship HMS] Beagle years as first and foremost a geologist.” Bowlby goes on to point out that “[b]efore sailing he had in his possession a copy the first volume of Lyell’s Principles of Geology, which provided a theoretical key to understanding how the various types of rock and strata might have come to occupy the particular positions they do.” During times when the Beagle was engaged in making maps of the costal waters around South America under the direction of captain Robert FitzRoy (more on the captain in a moment), it was not uncommon for Darwin to put together men, mules, and supplies, and simply start across the countryside making a geological traverse rather oblivious to the civil unrest that surrounded him. I can only imagine that Darwin would periodically issue forth with a hardy “Out of my way please … geologist coming through.” In all seriousness, it is a wonder that Darwin was not killed during one of these excursions. Today geologists still debate Darwin’s findings concerning the formation of playa lakes.[1]
As Bowlby points out, Darwin was acutely aware of the many biological components that eventually went into making up his theory of evolution. So, what exactly did Darwin do that had not been done before? Did he not just collect more biological pieces during his travels on the Beagle? Darwin started from the premise that somehow all of the biological pieces he was observing formed a coherent whole. I cannot help but think that he was influenced by his geological studies, the same ones that provided him with the idea that any geological landscape forms a coherent whole. Darwin’s big contribution in my opinion is his ability to think in terms of systems. Evolution is then the study of biology organized within an overall coherent system.
Yes, Darwin’s theory of evolution, more than anything, marked a paradigm shift in cognition, a shift in how scientists viewed systems. Prior to this cognitive shift, science operated largely out of a reductionistic worldview: reduce wholes to parts and observe those parts in isolation. I would suggest that this cognitive shift represented a move out of the middle brain—home to black and white, all or nothing thinking—and into the upper brain where we find Executive Functions such as perspective taking, running what if scenarios, mental modeling, time travel, and others. Now, in truth, the lower brain (home to those brain functions that maintain life), the middle brain, and the upper brain form an overall coherent system. You cannot divorce one from another. Reductionistic scientific inquiry has given us some amazing technological advances. However, as Ludwig von Bertalanffy, arguably the father of modern organic systems theory, points out in his 1969 seminal work General System Theory: Foundations, Development and Applications, reductionism is great for “analyzing elements, but then forgets to look at the relationships between elements, their interactions, and, as a result, is ill-equipped to put all of the elements together into a whole that works.” Bingo! That’s what Darwin did. He observed all of the biological parts surrounding him, he looked for relationships between those parts, looked at interactions, and then went about creating a whole that worked: evolution. In my opinion, evolution is the grandest systems theory of all time. But that may be changing.
Back in the 1980s, NASA scientists, using their perches out in space, began looking at the various components that make up planet Earth. Like Darwin these space scientists knew that the planet makes up a coherent whole. But how to understand that whole? Thus was born Earth Systems Science (ESS): studying the various Earth systems—biological, chemical, geological, climatic, social, political, etc.—as a coherent whole. Apparently ESS is centrally concerned with climate change and how such change affects other parts of the overall system. Now, this brings us back around to Captain FitzRoy.
As it turns out, FitzRoy, according to Bowlby, was interested in weather patterns. While the Beagle was involved in mapping coastal environments, FitzRoy also mapped weather patterns, something that is very important to mariners. Like Darwin (and no doubt FitzRoy and Darwin shared many thoughts and ideas) FitzRoy approached weather as a coherent whole. I would argue that FitzRoy was one of the first researchers to view climate as a chohernet whole that could be understood using a systems approach. Using a systems approach, FitzRoy proposed that weather and climate could be predicted, such predictions providing a huge benefit to mariners and even terrestrial-bound individuals.
The FitzRoy story has an unhappy ending. According to Bowlby, after returning to Britain, FitzRoy spent years promoting the idea that weather could be predicted. His ideas largely fell on deaf ears. Wikipedia tells us, “ FitzRoy was a pioneering meteorologist who made accurate daily weather predictions, which he called by a new name of his own invention: ‘forecasts.’ In 1854 he established what would later be called the Met Office [Meteorological Office], and created systems to get weather information to sailors and fishermen for their safety. He was an able surveyor and hydrographer.” FitzRoy met with an untimely demise. As Wikipedia tells it, “[I]nternal and external troubles at the Meteorological Office, financial concerns as well as failing health, and his struggle with depression took their toll. On 30 April 1865, Vice-Admiral FitzRoy died by suicide.” So, every time you watch a forecast on the evening news, think of Captain FitzRoy, probably the first person to look at climate as a coherent whole. I would suggest that between the two of them, Darwin and FitzRoy really were the pioneers of Earth Systems Science. ESS owes a debt of gratitude to these pioneering scientists. The voyages of the Beagle brought us more than the theory of evolution; they brought us Earth Systems Science. And, as Bowlby points out, both the theory of evolution and the theory of climatology received great resistance, mainly from religious groups and mariners who did not wish to be told when or when not go to sea respectively.[2] Not everyone readily accepts paradigm shifts as paradigm shifts challenge prevailing ideologies and worldviews.
In 2022, The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released a report funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), entitled Next Generation Earth Systems Science at the National Science Foundation. In many ways this NSF report is a blueprint for how Earth Systems Science should be set up, funded, and conducted. However, there’s a problem as I see it.
The report writes, “The study of the Earth system has deep historical roots [work by Darwin and FitzRoy examples here], but arguably systems thinking as an approach for the science emerged in the middle of the 20th century (von Bertalanffy, 1968) and has continuously evolved since then ….” The Bertalanffy reference is to his book entitled General System Theory mentioned above. I reviewed Bertalanffy’s book in my first book Bowlby’s Battle. I also reviewed a 2000 book by Gerald Midgley entitled Systemic Intervention: Philosophy, Methodology, and Practice.
Midgley agrees with the NSF report when it suggests that systems thinking has “continuously evolved” from Bertalanffy’s formulation of system theory starting in the 1940s to current formulations of systems theory. Midgley points out that there have been effectively three waves of systems development: 1) organic systems theory (this would be Bertalanffy’s influence from the 1940s through the late 1960s), 2) social systems theory (an example here would be the civil rights movement of the 1960s), and 3) emancipation systems theory, which started in the 1990s and is with us today (an example here would be DEI or Diversity, Equity, Inclusion). The NSF report implies that it uses wave three emancipation systems theory. This would make sense given that the DEI movement—a movement that the NSF report refers to regularly—is informed by emancipation systems theory and emancipation psychology. So, it is not enough to just say “systems theory.” It must be clear what wave of systems theory is being used. Again, the NSF report implies that it is using wave three emancipation systems theory. Frankly, I was not prepared for this level of politicalization and embrace of ideology. In my view, we have returned to reductionism: Earth Systems reduced to the ideology of emancipation from oppression. The irony here is that wave three adherents take a dim view of science arguing (from a postmodern worldview) that science is inherently oppressive. So it would seem that within a wave three systems perspective, science is OK as long as it serves the purpose of freeing people and animals from oppression. For more on this view, see the 2018 book entitled The Emancipatory Project of Posthumanism—Interventions by Erika Cudworth and Stephen Hobden.
Where does this leave us? Sadly, ESS (at least as outlined by the NSF report) has made a critical miscalculation by throwing in with the DEI movement and emancipation systems theory. As a result, billions in funding have been lost and may not return at least for the next three and a half years. Equally sad, ESS is needed, especially in the area of climate science, and cannot afford such miscalculations as time really is of the essence. What to do? Here are a few suggestions.
• Return to wave one systems science. This is where we will find theories like the theory of evolution, Bowlby’s theory of attachment, and even FitzRoy’s theory of climatology. As Bertalanffy points out in General System Theory, since its inception in the late 1920s, systems theory has “found application in the earth sciences, geomorphology, and meteorology.”
• Begin teaching wave one systems theory in schools and universities. This could take decades, however, without a widespread embrace of wave one systems theory, I do not see much movement on climate change. This is not to say that we should abandon reductionism; we should not. Reductionism and wave one systems thinking form a coherent whole. Here’s Bertalanffy’s hierarchy of systems for reference:
- static structure—atoms, molecules, etc.
- clock works—clocks, conventional machines, etc.
- control mechanisms—thermostats, servomechanisms, etc.
- open systems—cells and organisms in general
- lower organisms—“plant-like” organisms
- animals—increasing importance of traffic in information, beginnings of consciousness
- man—symbolism; past & future [i.e., mental time travel], self & world, self-awareness, etc.
- socio-cultural systems—populations of organisms (humans included); symbol-determined communities (cultures) in man only
- symbolic systems—language, logic, mathematics, sciences, arts, morals, etc.
Reductionism is largely concerned with levels 1 through 3. Organic systems theory is largely concerned with levels 4 through 9.
• Defend such things as the theory of evolution specifically and science in general from attacks from religion and postmodern ideologies. To help with this endeavor, please see the edited volume Anti-Science and the Assault on Democracy edited by Thompson and Smulewicz-Zucker. Also please read Ken Corvo’s article on the anti-science movement entitled Prometheus on the Quad.[3]
• Lastly, the science community needs to increase (or reestablish) efforts in the area of public intellectualism. As the book Anti-Science and the Assault on Democracy points out, science and democracy are not givens. They need to be defended. And there is no better way to defend science and democracy than through public intellectualism. I would suggest that Dr. Corvo’s article Prometheus on the Quad is a good example of public intellectualism in support of science.
In closing, it may seem that I am being too hard on liberals and their desire to hold science captive in the name of emancipation. Conservatives also wish to hold science captive. But this time it is in the service of the market. So, as I have blogged about before in a blog series entitled The Culture Wars—Is It Really Capitalism vs Socialism? the current battle between capitalism and socialism is being fought on the campuses of higher education. And each side seeks to bend education and science to their particular needs. We saw this in spades as the Trump administration tried to control Harvard. According to Corvo’s article Prometheus, the right is trying to control high education from without while the left is trying to control higher education from within by increasing the number and influence of administrative offices and positions. Different approaches; same end game: enslave science, which is ironic given that the left is against oppression and the right is for free markets. Yes, I know, crazy-making.
Postscript: I should mention that in my book Bowlby’s Battle, I make an interesting observation: the automation and AI revolution is short-circuiting against the emancipation psychology movement. This short-circuiting is lighting the way toward post humanism or people as machines. On the right we have such things as the Singularity, End Times, and The Rapture. Project 2025 is centrally about bringing about the End Times as talked about by Naomi Klein in recent YouTube interviews. On the left we have such things as DEI and emancipation psychology. In both cases there is this desire to solve all problems by transcending the human body. In many ways, the desire for posthumanism has made strange bedfellows out of the right and the left. For two good books on posthumanism, I would suggest Francis Fukuyama’s Our Postman Future and Katherine Hayles’ How We Became Posthuman, a book that I bogged about extensively in my blog series Attachment Neurobiology and the Cutting Room Floor.
Notes:
[1] – From a Google AI summary we hear: “[I]n his 1846 publication titled Origin of Saliferous Deposits. Salt Lakes of Patagonia and La Plata, Darwin examined the origin of salt in these salinas. He presented an analysis that questioned the prevailing view that the salt was solely due to the evaporation of seawater and drainage from salt-impregnated strata. He noted that, if accurate, the presence of a small brine-spring flowing year-round on the northern side of the salina on the Rio Negro would suggest a subterranean origin for the salt in that particular case.”
[2] – Today we see a movement once again of people who do not wish to be told what to do with respect to climate.
[3] – You can access Dr. Corvo’s article via a link contained in this op-ed written in support of Prometheus over at LearningWellMag.org:
