STORIES FROM ECOLOGICAL SCIENCES 79
fields of study emerging at this time. In this chapter we explore
stories from contemporary ecological science that represent how we
think about the world and our human place in it. Contemporary
science questions many of the assumptions of classical scientific
paradigms that assume that we can stand apart from the world and
observe, analyze and categorize the components of the world in
order to explain and control it. This is the mechanistic or objectivistic
model of the universe, the world as a machine. Even though newer
scientific theories question mechanistic and objectivist thinking, it is
still ensconced in many of the disciplines of higher education and
health care. This way of thinking also influences how we view our
own bodies as something separate from mind or soul. Metaphors
from mechanistic science remain deeply embedded in our Western
thinking and language.
The ecology of relationship
Systems in biology
In the 1950s the biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy outlined his
idea of General System Theory. This theory was an effort to
understand the complexity and relational reality of living systems,
which reductionist perspectives of traditional science had not been
able to account for (Bertalanffy 1968). Conventional physics had
traditionally dealt with closed systems, those separated from their
environment, while living organisms are open to the environment.
Systems approaches differ from more reductionist approaches by
emphasizing the interconnectedness and interaction both within a
system and with its environment. Systems theories and related theories
of self-organization, cybernetics and complexity studies look at the
structure of systems as well as how they interact and communicate.
Since the time of von Bertanlanffy, in addition to biology, systems
concepts have been applied widely in physics, mathematics, sociology,
philosophy, organizational development, ecology, and especially to
family therapy. Rather than reducing an entity or an organization of