DISRUPTION
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 951 ▶ |
| Object type | General information |
The breaking asunder of any system by the destruction of one or various of its regulating devices.
Regulators are circuits, based on feedbacks and composed of two or various interconnected arcs. Cutting one of these arcs, or even only mishandle it, may disorganize or destroy the whole system.
This is frequently the case when mere consequences are confused for causes in complex systems. A good example has been the Template:Ency entity campaign to erradicate paludism through insecticide spraying against anopheles, and synthetic drugs use against the plasmodium, without taking in account that paludism is part of very complex ecological systems, including waters, plants, animals and human settlements of great variety. Moreover, the co-evolutive ability and adaptiveness of the intervening species also were ignored. As a global result, paludism is presently out of control in expanding zones.
In G. BATESON's words: “Characteristically, errors occur wherever the altered causal chain is part of some large or small circuit structure of a system. And the remainder of our technology (of which medical science is only a part) bids fair to disrupt the rest of our ecology” (1973, p.119).
The disruption problem is a typical result of partialization in the management of systems of any kinds.