The more complex ,the more stable

What is common between population control (family planning) and the tropical forest (the greenhouse effect)? The advice is to control the family, not the forest.

What is common is the general complexity theory of the ecologists. The more complex a system, the more stable it is. It efforts are made by man to introduce changes to control the system, or to achieve certain goals, then instability will set in, creating more problems.

That is the central idea behind the environment activists, now being supported by powerful North countries, who are asking the developing countries not to cut down or disturb the tropical forests.

This Universe is too vast and too complex for complete human understanding. The vastness and complexity makes the universe so stable. The sun continues to shine, the moon appears as usual for thousands of years, and this earth of ours still exists (a sick, man-made management system).

On the other hand, a small system like a personal garden will die out if left to itself, without maintenance by the gardener; whereas the huge jungles and forests continue to live and thrive merrily for years and years, if left undisturbed, without any external monitoring and assistance (note how wild the grass grows even on the unused city plots).

The greenhouse effect (rising of the earth's atmospheric temperature) is said to be due to our tampering with the forests for the materialistic development of the human civilization. This principle may also be applied to government and economics, according to the ideas developed by scientists and economists such as Ehrlick, Hayek, and Friedman.

Other examples tempt us: the breakup of Soviet socialism (communism), the unity of the poor, the struggling West European nations; the trade blocks. Therefore there appears to be no guarantee that man-made capitalism will be safe and stable.

Births and deaths (population of the living creatures, including human beings) take place in highly complex systems in nature, and attempts to control or simplify, or to set some goals through human or artificial means, are likely to create more instability than more stability, according to the complexity theory.

The size of the family and the human population in the industrialized countries follow a common pattern of smaller families and lower growth rates. Family 'Planning' was indirect in such countries due to many artificially created reasons, such as internal mobility and migration, late marriages, and the invasion by the females of the factories, offices and shops. On the other hand FP as practiced in the under-developed countries is by direct and planned methods.

Studies are needed, spread over several generations, on these plans and controls, and the resulting short-term and long term effects of FP programmes. In contrast, the rapid industrialization has set in a chain of instabilities which the civilization has to tackle in the 21st century. Nations today are armed with nuclear devices destructive enough to destabilize the vast and complex ecosystem. Combined with the general unstable political climate, we are living in a trigger happy world, waiting for the pressing of one wrong button.

The analytical inputs are far more complex than set out in stray examples above. Solutions are not easy to find, or even the identification of the action strategies. The options and priorities have to be spotted and defined. It pays to learn from errors (the Greenhouse Effect, fast consumer societies, political and economic systems).

This is not possible, as the scientists tell us that it is impossible for the evolutionists to make long-term predictions about the future of the human race ("The Anthropic Cosmological Principle," the 700-page book written by barrow and Tipple, published in 1988 by the OUP).

The complexity theory has off-shoots and side questions. How about the effect of mass prayers on macro systems? Since control increases instability, the Western world is advocating free market economy; but the messages are coming from tightly guarded economic trade blocks! Where is the inconsistency?

Life is worth living --- at least it keeps us busy, and makes us more complex. Now for the lakh-taka question: have conditions in Bangladesh become so complex that there are glimpses of the signs of stability, according to the theory under review?

Time for a pause here, before proceeding further, because, if we are to believe in G Wald, "We are the products of editing, rather the authorship."