of fundamental constituents that could not be analyzed any further. The great shock of twentieth-century science has been that systems cannot be understood by analysis. The properties of the parts are not intrinsic properties but can be understood only within the context of the larger whole. Thus the relationship between the parts and the whole has been reversed. In the systems approach the properties of the parts can be understood only from the organization of the whole. Accordingly, systems thinking concentrates not on basic building blocks, but on basic principles of organization. Systems thinking is "contextual," which is the opposite of analytical thinking. Analysis means taking something apart in order to understand it; systems thinking means putting it into the context of a larger whole.One gathers, indeed, from our standard histories of the sciences, written mostly in the last generation, that the world lay steeped in the darkness and night of superstition, till one day Copernicus bravely cast aside the errors of his fellows, looked at the heavens and observed nature, the first man since the Greeks to do so, and discovered . . . the truth about the solar system. The next day, so to speak, Galileo climbed the leaning Tower of Pisa, dropped down his weights, and as they thudded to the ground, Aristotle was crushed to earth and the laws of falling bodies sprang into being. [Source: The Career of Philosophy, vol 1, 1962]It was the achievement of men like Copernicus and Galileo sift through centuries of scientific knowledge and to create a new world view. This was a world view based as much on previous science and knowledge as it was on new developments derived from the scientific method. http://www.pagesz.net/~stevek/intellect/newton.htmlhttp://www.pagesz.net/~stevek/intellect/newton.htmlThe greatest scientific achievement of the 17th century was clearly the mathematical system of the universe produced by Isaac Newton (1642-1727). ...
