System; Input; Output: A Critique of Science from the Standpoint of Waste
System; Input; Output: A Critique of Science from the Standpoint of Waste

Summary/Abstract: In this paper it is not so much about the epistemology of waste, but about the epistemology of science from the standpoint of the system theory. Although science meant from its beginning the search for causes and correlations –thus necessarily considering the systems it has focused on – its modern history presents rather a kind of dialectic of holistic and fragmentary approach. In other words, the inherent analytical approach in the construction of scientific theories, the deepening of the professional character of science and special disciplines have seemed to leading to the separation of the main results from the aggregate of results and phenomena. No one has aimed at discussing the residual/secondary phenomena, because what seemed to be respectable in the scientific research was the correlation between the laws or regularities, emphasised through difficult measuring and arguments, and the main phenomena “reflecting” the laws or regularities and targeted and pursued by the scientists. As we know, the accumulation of data, information and aimed theories emphasises the shortcomings and contradictions in the given corpus of science. At the same time, the coherence of theories is confronted with the real phenomena, irrespective here of the definitions we forge for “reality”. In the middle of the last century, the current of the integrationof fragmentary theories related to the sub-systems targeted by scientists into a general system theory has appeared and, obviously, has shaped the scientific outlook on the world, with all the inertial continuation of fragmentary research.Nevertheless, the systemic tackling had –and still has –a serious deficiency: the much weaker attention to the residual/”unintentional”results. But the thesis of the paper is that this deficiency is not so much generated by the internal logic of science than by the extra science logic of decision-makers who control science. Illustrating this thesis, the scientific view of Aristotle-Ludwig von Bertalanffy line is counter-posed to the present distortion of the real world full of all kinds of waste.The epistemological conclusion is that the problem of waste/consequences imposes the re-thinking and transformation of the whole model of input-processing-output system.

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