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pass the entire collection of problems. (Among rigorous studies of adaptation, Tsypkin's [1971] usage comes closest to this in breadth, but he deliberately focuses on the man-made systems.) This extension, if taken seriously, entails a commitment to view adaptation as a fundamental process, appearing in a variety of guises but subject to unified study. Even at the outset there is a powerful warrant for this view. It comes from the observation that all variations of the problem give rise to the same fundamental questions. |
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To what parts of its environment is the organism (system, organization) adapting?
How does the environment act upon the adapting organism (system, organization)?
What structures are undergoing adaptation?
What are the mechanisms of adaptation?
What part of the history of its interaction with the environment does the organism (system, organization) retain?
What limits are there to the adaptive process?
How are different (hypotheses about) adaptive processes to be compared? |
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Moreover, as we attempt to answer these questions in different contexts, essentially the same obstacles to adaptation appear again and again. They appear with different guises and names, but they have the same basic structure. For example, "nonlinearity," "false peak," and "epistatic effect" all designate versions of the same difficulty. In the next section we will look more closely at these obstacles; for now let it be noted that the study of adaptation is deeply concerned with the means of overcoming these obstacles. |
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Despite a wealth of data from many different fields and despite many insights, we are still a long way from a general understanding of adaptive mechanisms. The situation is much like that in the old tale of blind men examining an elephantdifferent aspects of adaptation acquire different emphases because of the points of contact. A specific feature will be prominent in one study, obscure in another. Useful and suggestive results remain in comparative isolation. Under such circumstances theory can be a powerful aid. Successful analysis separates incidental or "local" exaggerations from fundamental features. A broadly conceived analytic theory brings data and explanation into a coherent whole, providing opportunities for prediction and control. Indeed there is an important sense in which a good theory defines the objects with which it deals. It reveals their interactions, the methods of transforming and controlling them, and predictions of what will happen to them. |
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Theory will have a central role in all that follows, but only insofar as it illuminates practice. For natural systems, this means that theory must provide |
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