The natural world is more than a machine

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/22/the-natural-world-is-more-than-a-machine

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Letters: We are learning that ecological systems are far more complex and mysterious than a mechanism we can analyse, writes Peter Reason

Lucy Jones is not alone in calling a natural process a “mechanism”, but to do so draws us into a reductionist worldview of cause and effect that is not only wrong but misleadingly dangerous (In times of uncertainty, let nature be your refuge, 20 March). The word draws us into a view of the world as machine, what William Blake called a “single vision”, just at the time when we are learning that ecological systems are far more complex, maybe mysterious. Words matter: they build our world.Peter ReasonProfessor emeritus, University of Bath