From Social System to Ecosystem

' All science proceeds by a selective ordering of data by means of conceptual schemes. Although the formulation and application of conceptual schemes are recognized to entail, at some stage of inquiry, more or less arbitrary choices on the part of the theorist or investigator, we all acknowledge, or at lea feel, that the nature of the "real world" exc :ises strong constraints on the developm~nt of schemes in science. Some schemes, used frUItfully over long peri~ds ~f time, co~e to .seem s~ natu.rafl . that we find It dIfficult to Imagme then bemg superseded. One type of scheme is deeply i~ grained by our training as social scientists, ~o WIt, the organization of data by ley~(~. ,Kroeber:s o~ly voicing the consensus of a maJonty of SCIentIsts when he writes: