Abstract
This paper is critical of some loose speculations about cybernetics, computers and “systems,” especially as to their role in organization and planning. There is a widespread tendency to believe that human and organizational vagaries can be eliminated by some combination of the former techniques. This tendency is encouraged by a bias towards mechanistic and abstract solutions for social problems. Further, there is a failure to properly take into account “natural laws,” in the sense of limitations on human and organizational ability, when developing normative models for policy and planning problems. “Viable holistic models,” supposedly, should replace human and organizational haphazardness; attention has been devoted tosubstituting the machine-techniques for the man, rather than concentrating on man-machine interactions, based on selective adaptations to natural laws.
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Millar, J.A. Selective adaptation. Policy Sci 3, 125–135 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01460087
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01460087