Business Ecology, Part I - What is it?
04/April/2007 11:51 Filed in: Weekly Column
4 April 2007; Volume 9, Issue 14
PDF copy
Business Ecology, so what is it?
When I first created the term Business Ecology in the early 1980’s it basically was a way of applying the knowledge and wisdom gained from observing nature and applying them to the fields of human enterprise.
These applications were done within the constructs of what can be defined as descriptive operational science. What that means is that you can go to some place on the earth, do a series of measurements of what you find, record them in some fashion to make them available to others, who might like to check your work, but more importantly to build a data base of what you might find, so that others may build upon that work, to help create a better world for those who follow.
What becomes quickly apparent if you do ecology, rather than read about ecology is how little we really know about the world. Armed with some type of measuring line, at any particular place on earth, by systematically counting and identifying the plants or other forms of life along that transect, you quickly learn this is something nobody else knows. Is that cool or what. That transect might occur in a pristine wilderness, a road cut for an urban freeway, or even the plants growing in the cracks of the paving in an urban playground.
If plants aren’t your thing, you can dig in the dirt and see what creatures you might find. To make it more amazing you might try and identify the bacteria in the soil, or again in the crack of the playground, if that floats your boat. Speaking of boats, if you are into water, you can do the same thing there, if you grow tired of lakes, there are streams and rivers, and how about the oceans. Say you gather 100 points of data, write down what you did, what you found, and you are an ecologist.
Business ecology was basically generalizing those principles you learn doing ecology and then applying them to human ecology, how man relates within and without of his communities, especially in the concept of human enterprise. Human enterprise includes both money making enterprises and those who help with social structure, what we normally call ministries or non profit organizations.
That pretty much was my emphasis for the first couple of years. Basically summarized, we can take all this cool stuff we might learn in the natural field and apply it successfully to all things we humans do. That is pretty powerful. Weeds in the crack in the playground could relate to how someone could successfully deal with their cancer. Well that is probably a stretch, but it still could be an application with merit.
What sort of happened, like someone turning on the light one day, was the realization that while applying this and that to human enterprise was interesting, the real truth lies in the fact that human enterprise is really part and parcel of the larger ecosystem on earth. Now one thing that ecology teaches from the beginning is the relationship between communities, but what we are talking about here is not an abstract theory, but applications of natural laws, which govern within the constraints of direct operational science the enterprises of man. Enterprises transgress those laws at their peril and yours, because everything is interrelated synergistically. In other words our enterprises must follow the natural laws to be successful other than as a short term aberration.
Brought up to the present era, this is what the concepts we now consider “green” or “sustainable” are all about, with one significant difference. True Business Ecology must flow from the constructs of the natural laws of descriptive science, green sustainability basically flows from a worldview that the goodness of man, will in some miraculous way, allow us to solve all our problems, if we just think enough good thoughts, visualize mother earth, work together as innocent children, or whatever.
Such illusions are not substantiated in natural law, but you will never recognize that by conceptualizing this great world in the downtown urban high rise. Nor will you learn it on a 60 inch plasma TV, while watching the latest Discovery Channel series. They won’t teach you that in church either.
This brings us to the concept of worldview. We all have one, which is pretty much unique to you, like noses. Again using those same principles of observational science, we can make some worldview generalizations. So just what is worldview however? Basically worldview is your underlying religious principles, without the emotion or anxiety that the term religion connotes. We all interpret the data from our scientific experiments basically through worldview glasses which help to define our unique identity. The really cool thing however, as long as we stick to direct descriptive operational science, we can irrespective of our worldview, pretty much agree on the facts or the data. Furthermore, really understanding what it means is also pretty straight forward. Where it gets complex and views quickly diverge is when we move into applying theories (consistent with our personal worldview) to the data we have all observed.
These theories are even more susceptible to these divergent paths when it comes down to interpreting data from things that have happened in the past, where there was no human present to write down what happened and then pass it on to us. Two examples of this relate to the size, number, and when glacial floods occurred causing the formation of the Scablands of Eastern Washington. A similar situation occurs in understanding the ice cores from glaciers around the world, as it relates to the reality of the concept of climate change.
What we are saying is we all have constructed in our minds, relatively simple models of how we think the world came to be, why we are here, and where we are headed. Some people have well thought out systematic models, most sadly do not. All these concepts are related to us as individuals, but also to us as part of the human family. But notice here even the use of the term I chose, human family, is similar but slightly different than if I had chosen the term natural community instead. Furthermore, to be politically correct in our current culture I should have probably use the term the human consciousness of our natural ecosystem. All of these words really just flow from the understanding of a particular worldview.
So what are some of these models or worldviews?
Most of you who will read this after publication will read it from an internet link on “The Wonder Springs Chronicle, A Biblical Worldview Commentary.” Before I explain what a Biblical Worldview means, I must make clear that just because we all have somewhat of an unique worldview does not mean they are all correct or true. Truth assumes first and foremost that there are absolute values by which the world operates. We started this discussion by using the applications of descriptive observational science to the study of human enterprise. We could call what we observe “absolute particulars” even if you never thought of it that way. These more general absolute concepts that govern our lives are gravity, that the sun will rise this morning, we get older everyday, and we will eventually die.
All of these concepts whether you ever thought of it this way or not, say that there are reasons why you exist and that existence is based upon the existence of God, for if God did not exist there would be no reasons for reasons. Those reasons are exclusive in that they reasonably rule, our non reason, for a reason for reality. But we are getting into philosophy rather than worldviews and as we have said earlier, worldviews are basically religions made politically correct.
Last week in the “Light and Dark Sides,” I mentioned my early adult career as a Military Intelligence agent. Perhaps I should briefly bookend that light side experience, with my ecology and Christian experience.
As a young Christian I was catechized by my just out of seminary Lutheran pastor, that God had chosen to create the world, not the way the Bible seemed to clearly state in Genesis 1, but through the science of evolution, or theistic evolution. This is similar to the more fundamentist Christian gap theory teaching that there is a millions of years gap between Genesis 1:1, and Genesis 1:2. The assumption in all this then and now, is that the Bible truly can not be trusted when it comes to science. What these enlightened leaders are stating is first and foremost that evolution truly states descriptive observational science, when in reality it is basically a philosophical theory of origins or the cosmos based upon a worldview that there is no God, He has not communicated that truth through the Bible, and everything that exists has a plausible completely natural material explanation.
The Bible speaks of the human godless desire in Romans Chapter 1 and elsewhere. However, what Christians of all schools really haven’t understood is that if you throw out the God of the Bible in Genesis 1-11 you must also through out the Jesus of the cross, who died for the sins of man and was raised from the dead and is currently now physically alive as a witness of our justification.
If Genesis is not true, why not celebrate Easter as a fertility holiday with cute little bunny rabbits, and colored eggs and we all go to grandma’s and eat Easter Ham to honor the Christian Inquisition of the Jews in Spain. Now to be really pagan relevant about it, why not also throw out any tie that Christ’s resurrection has to do with the Jewish Passover, instead lets make it be the first Sunday, after the first full moon, after the spring equinox.
Therefore, what we see way too much in Christendom is that Christ died on a cross, but not to save sinners from eternal death and separation from God. Sinners are those of us who might write this message, or might later read it and find something worth inspecting as a true worldview that has answers to the deepest questions of life. Christianity to most post modern Christians is a happy group of perfected saints, who only sin a few times a week if that often, and then only it really isn’t sin at all, but just a short coming. Furthermore, they are trying to convert us all to believe the same, by changing the world into a culture based on the same power and materialism that is the flaw of evolution.
We have digressed, but while the date may be the same on the calendar, at The Wonder Springs Chronicle, we don’t celebrate Easter, we celebrate Resurrection Sunday, and we attempt to celebrate Christ’s resurrection every Sunday by publishing the appropriate section of the Heidelberg Catechism, not because we are what Protestant Christians call the Reformed faith (denomination), we publish it because it is good stuff, and something that even many Reformed no long find relevant to their Sunday worship services. When published in 1563 the context of the Heidelberg Catechism gave concise Biblical based answers to those who were focused upon the supremacy of God, not the supremacy of man and themselves. Therefore, today it’s teachings are more needed and relevant than when it was first published by Elector Frederick III.
Have a Happy Resurrection Sunday, this coming Lord’s Day. Furthermore, take the time to learn to know the width, the height and the depth of what this Resurrection has accomplished in this world. You can begin that journey through the Heidelberg Catechism under the St. Paul’s Mission tab and Sunday’s on the Chronicle front page.
In some respect we are now back on course. During my Senior year at Eastern Washington University, I had to take a Field Botany class to fulfill my requirements for my degree in Biology. Field Botany consisted of going out into the field and collecting at least 50 plant specimens, identifying them by their scientific names, and turn them in at the end of Spring Quarter, along with other efforts for a grade.
Eastern sits on the Columbia basalt plateau, at the edge of one of the scabland flood channels that eventually makes their way again to the now flowing Columbia River. The closest real mountain of any real size is Mt. Spokane about the same distance outside Spokane to the northeast as Eastern is in Cheney to the southwest. I decided to make the effort to drive up there and collect some of my plant specimens. In early April I drove to the area and selected a place that I could safely park on that mountain road. As I returned as frequently as possible, soon the two feet of snow melted, then a few plants appeared, then some more, and so on, until at the very spot I visited in April, by late June I was not walking through two feet of snow, I was walking through grass two feet tall. In the context of stupendous change being a reality on earth, our changing seasons, can not be a much better example.
It was that late spring day, that I bent down to collect a plant I found interesting, but what I really saw before me was a biological diversity that would take me all summer to collect and to identify. It was so humbling that should have put you on your knees in prayer. That was just with the plants, that had nothing to do with the birds and the terrestrial critters, nor with the insects and other creatures that were every where apparent. At that time I offered a prayer that was basically. “God, I don’t have enough faith to believe that all this came about by evolutionary chance of millions and billions of years. If this means I can not be a good scientist, (or a good Christian) so be it.”
It was probably fifteen to twenty years from that day before I found out that there were others who called themselves Christians that believe that Creation Science using the principles of descriptive operational science has no problem with what the Bible has to say. In fact, a Creator God who actively is engaged with His people and the world, is much more consistent with a Biblical worldview than any other systematic understanding of reality. Creation Science is truly the thesis and the antithesis of human enlightenment. Ruminate on that for a while.
In that regard as we have closed many of the last few weeks articles: The times have been short, only thousands of years, because it doesn’t take all that long for the sins of man to completely lose sight of God’s truth.
This week we add the good news to that bleak conclusion, that Christ is risen, he is risen indeed. Have a blessed Resurrection Sunday.
Next week we will look more in depth at other, more popular worldviews.
PDF copy
Business Ecology, so what is it?
When I first created the term Business Ecology in the early 1980’s it basically was a way of applying the knowledge and wisdom gained from observing nature and applying them to the fields of human enterprise.
These applications were done within the constructs of what can be defined as descriptive operational science. What that means is that you can go to some place on the earth, do a series of measurements of what you find, record them in some fashion to make them available to others, who might like to check your work, but more importantly to build a data base of what you might find, so that others may build upon that work, to help create a better world for those who follow.
What becomes quickly apparent if you do ecology, rather than read about ecology is how little we really know about the world. Armed with some type of measuring line, at any particular place on earth, by systematically counting and identifying the plants or other forms of life along that transect, you quickly learn this is something nobody else knows. Is that cool or what. That transect might occur in a pristine wilderness, a road cut for an urban freeway, or even the plants growing in the cracks of the paving in an urban playground.
If plants aren’t your thing, you can dig in the dirt and see what creatures you might find. To make it more amazing you might try and identify the bacteria in the soil, or again in the crack of the playground, if that floats your boat. Speaking of boats, if you are into water, you can do the same thing there, if you grow tired of lakes, there are streams and rivers, and how about the oceans. Say you gather 100 points of data, write down what you did, what you found, and you are an ecologist.
Business ecology was basically generalizing those principles you learn doing ecology and then applying them to human ecology, how man relates within and without of his communities, especially in the concept of human enterprise. Human enterprise includes both money making enterprises and those who help with social structure, what we normally call ministries or non profit organizations.
That pretty much was my emphasis for the first couple of years. Basically summarized, we can take all this cool stuff we might learn in the natural field and apply it successfully to all things we humans do. That is pretty powerful. Weeds in the crack in the playground could relate to how someone could successfully deal with their cancer. Well that is probably a stretch, but it still could be an application with merit.
What sort of happened, like someone turning on the light one day, was the realization that while applying this and that to human enterprise was interesting, the real truth lies in the fact that human enterprise is really part and parcel of the larger ecosystem on earth. Now one thing that ecology teaches from the beginning is the relationship between communities, but what we are talking about here is not an abstract theory, but applications of natural laws, which govern within the constraints of direct operational science the enterprises of man. Enterprises transgress those laws at their peril and yours, because everything is interrelated synergistically. In other words our enterprises must follow the natural laws to be successful other than as a short term aberration.
Brought up to the present era, this is what the concepts we now consider “green” or “sustainable” are all about, with one significant difference. True Business Ecology must flow from the constructs of the natural laws of descriptive science, green sustainability basically flows from a worldview that the goodness of man, will in some miraculous way, allow us to solve all our problems, if we just think enough good thoughts, visualize mother earth, work together as innocent children, or whatever.
Such illusions are not substantiated in natural law, but you will never recognize that by conceptualizing this great world in the downtown urban high rise. Nor will you learn it on a 60 inch plasma TV, while watching the latest Discovery Channel series. They won’t teach you that in church either.
This brings us to the concept of worldview. We all have one, which is pretty much unique to you, like noses. Again using those same principles of observational science, we can make some worldview generalizations. So just what is worldview however? Basically worldview is your underlying religious principles, without the emotion or anxiety that the term religion connotes. We all interpret the data from our scientific experiments basically through worldview glasses which help to define our unique identity. The really cool thing however, as long as we stick to direct descriptive operational science, we can irrespective of our worldview, pretty much agree on the facts or the data. Furthermore, really understanding what it means is also pretty straight forward. Where it gets complex and views quickly diverge is when we move into applying theories (consistent with our personal worldview) to the data we have all observed.
These theories are even more susceptible to these divergent paths when it comes down to interpreting data from things that have happened in the past, where there was no human present to write down what happened and then pass it on to us. Two examples of this relate to the size, number, and when glacial floods occurred causing the formation of the Scablands of Eastern Washington. A similar situation occurs in understanding the ice cores from glaciers around the world, as it relates to the reality of the concept of climate change.
What we are saying is we all have constructed in our minds, relatively simple models of how we think the world came to be, why we are here, and where we are headed. Some people have well thought out systematic models, most sadly do not. All these concepts are related to us as individuals, but also to us as part of the human family. But notice here even the use of the term I chose, human family, is similar but slightly different than if I had chosen the term natural community instead. Furthermore, to be politically correct in our current culture I should have probably use the term the human consciousness of our natural ecosystem. All of these words really just flow from the understanding of a particular worldview.
So what are some of these models or worldviews?
Most of you who will read this after publication will read it from an internet link on “The Wonder Springs Chronicle, A Biblical Worldview Commentary.” Before I explain what a Biblical Worldview means, I must make clear that just because we all have somewhat of an unique worldview does not mean they are all correct or true. Truth assumes first and foremost that there are absolute values by which the world operates. We started this discussion by using the applications of descriptive observational science to the study of human enterprise. We could call what we observe “absolute particulars” even if you never thought of it that way. These more general absolute concepts that govern our lives are gravity, that the sun will rise this morning, we get older everyday, and we will eventually die.
All of these concepts whether you ever thought of it this way or not, say that there are reasons why you exist and that existence is based upon the existence of God, for if God did not exist there would be no reasons for reasons. Those reasons are exclusive in that they reasonably rule, our non reason, for a reason for reality. But we are getting into philosophy rather than worldviews and as we have said earlier, worldviews are basically religions made politically correct.
Last week in the “Light and Dark Sides,” I mentioned my early adult career as a Military Intelligence agent. Perhaps I should briefly bookend that light side experience, with my ecology and Christian experience.
As a young Christian I was catechized by my just out of seminary Lutheran pastor, that God had chosen to create the world, not the way the Bible seemed to clearly state in Genesis 1, but through the science of evolution, or theistic evolution. This is similar to the more fundamentist Christian gap theory teaching that there is a millions of years gap between Genesis 1:1, and Genesis 1:2. The assumption in all this then and now, is that the Bible truly can not be trusted when it comes to science. What these enlightened leaders are stating is first and foremost that evolution truly states descriptive observational science, when in reality it is basically a philosophical theory of origins or the cosmos based upon a worldview that there is no God, He has not communicated that truth through the Bible, and everything that exists has a plausible completely natural material explanation.
The Bible speaks of the human godless desire in Romans Chapter 1 and elsewhere. However, what Christians of all schools really haven’t understood is that if you throw out the God of the Bible in Genesis 1-11 you must also through out the Jesus of the cross, who died for the sins of man and was raised from the dead and is currently now physically alive as a witness of our justification.
If Genesis is not true, why not celebrate Easter as a fertility holiday with cute little bunny rabbits, and colored eggs and we all go to grandma’s and eat Easter Ham to honor the Christian Inquisition of the Jews in Spain. Now to be really pagan relevant about it, why not also throw out any tie that Christ’s resurrection has to do with the Jewish Passover, instead lets make it be the first Sunday, after the first full moon, after the spring equinox.
Therefore, what we see way too much in Christendom is that Christ died on a cross, but not to save sinners from eternal death and separation from God. Sinners are those of us who might write this message, or might later read it and find something worth inspecting as a true worldview that has answers to the deepest questions of life. Christianity to most post modern Christians is a happy group of perfected saints, who only sin a few times a week if that often, and then only it really isn’t sin at all, but just a short coming. Furthermore, they are trying to convert us all to believe the same, by changing the world into a culture based on the same power and materialism that is the flaw of evolution.
We have digressed, but while the date may be the same on the calendar, at The Wonder Springs Chronicle, we don’t celebrate Easter, we celebrate Resurrection Sunday, and we attempt to celebrate Christ’s resurrection every Sunday by publishing the appropriate section of the Heidelberg Catechism, not because we are what Protestant Christians call the Reformed faith (denomination), we publish it because it is good stuff, and something that even many Reformed no long find relevant to their Sunday worship services. When published in 1563 the context of the Heidelberg Catechism gave concise Biblical based answers to those who were focused upon the supremacy of God, not the supremacy of man and themselves. Therefore, today it’s teachings are more needed and relevant than when it was first published by Elector Frederick III.
Have a Happy Resurrection Sunday, this coming Lord’s Day. Furthermore, take the time to learn to know the width, the height and the depth of what this Resurrection has accomplished in this world. You can begin that journey through the Heidelberg Catechism under the St. Paul’s Mission tab and Sunday’s on the Chronicle front page.
In some respect we are now back on course. During my Senior year at Eastern Washington University, I had to take a Field Botany class to fulfill my requirements for my degree in Biology. Field Botany consisted of going out into the field and collecting at least 50 plant specimens, identifying them by their scientific names, and turn them in at the end of Spring Quarter, along with other efforts for a grade.
Eastern sits on the Columbia basalt plateau, at the edge of one of the scabland flood channels that eventually makes their way again to the now flowing Columbia River. The closest real mountain of any real size is Mt. Spokane about the same distance outside Spokane to the northeast as Eastern is in Cheney to the southwest. I decided to make the effort to drive up there and collect some of my plant specimens. In early April I drove to the area and selected a place that I could safely park on that mountain road. As I returned as frequently as possible, soon the two feet of snow melted, then a few plants appeared, then some more, and so on, until at the very spot I visited in April, by late June I was not walking through two feet of snow, I was walking through grass two feet tall. In the context of stupendous change being a reality on earth, our changing seasons, can not be a much better example.
It was that late spring day, that I bent down to collect a plant I found interesting, but what I really saw before me was a biological diversity that would take me all summer to collect and to identify. It was so humbling that should have put you on your knees in prayer. That was just with the plants, that had nothing to do with the birds and the terrestrial critters, nor with the insects and other creatures that were every where apparent. At that time I offered a prayer that was basically. “God, I don’t have enough faith to believe that all this came about by evolutionary chance of millions and billions of years. If this means I can not be a good scientist, (or a good Christian) so be it.”
It was probably fifteen to twenty years from that day before I found out that there were others who called themselves Christians that believe that Creation Science using the principles of descriptive operational science has no problem with what the Bible has to say. In fact, a Creator God who actively is engaged with His people and the world, is much more consistent with a Biblical worldview than any other systematic understanding of reality. Creation Science is truly the thesis and the antithesis of human enlightenment. Ruminate on that for a while.
In that regard as we have closed many of the last few weeks articles: The times have been short, only thousands of years, because it doesn’t take all that long for the sins of man to completely lose sight of God’s truth.
This week we add the good news to that bleak conclusion, that Christ is risen, he is risen indeed. Have a blessed Resurrection Sunday.
Next week we will look more in depth at other, more popular worldviews.