Tools for Thought: How to Understand and Apply the Latest Scientific Techniques of Problem Solving [Hardcover]

C. H. Waddington (Author), Yolanda Sonnabend (Illustrator)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 250 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (August 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465086233
• ISBN-13: 978-0465086238
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,178,096 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Valuable Assessment of C.O.W.D.U.N.G., February 18, 2002

By 

Bruce I. Kodish (Pasadena, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tools for Thought: How to Understand and Apply the Latest Scientific Techniques of Problem Solving (Hardcover)

C. H. Waddington, a geneticist who died in 1975 and wrote on a wide variety of scientifically-related subjects for professional and popular audiences, presents here a survey of theories and methods for dealing with complex systems, including human beings and human societies. Waddington includes "Considerations of complex shapes, of interactions, of processes, of stabilities, traffic of information and instructions, games theories, forecasting, statistics and more classical scientific analyses..." (232). On the minus side some of his emphases such as the importance of catastrophe theory for understanding system changes may seem dated. His compendium of cross-disciplinary methods, necessarily abstract, provides difficult reading at times. On the plus side, Waddington's clear writing style makes the process easier. His philosophy reinforces and resonates with Alfred Korzybski's non-aristotelian views. Waddington urged throughout a reassessment of how we think in order to move beyond what he calls the "Conventional Wisdom of the Dominant Group" or "COWDUNG" (16).

0 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars wkrc wcpo cpo, May 7, 2005

By 

Douglas S Gillman "Coastwatch Grid *n ;;;Chuu... (Truk Lagoon, Caroline Islands, South Pacific) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tools for Thought: How to Understand and Apply the Latest Scientific Techniques of Problem Solving (Hardcover)

Confusion in the middle name Dresdin, I guess.

Waddington founded operations research mathematics during
WWII, devolved about an assembly of British anti-submarine
aircraft. Photos were taken of attacks, and the assembly
modified.

Waddington's group, including Fraser (structural orthoganality,
as noted, Thom, Goodwin, Elssaser, others.

A set of books by a collection of theortical biologists.

Goodwin's book, Temporal Organization in Cells, was
computerized by Fraser.

If there is a paradigm shift somewhere in here,...

perhaps, ocular brain dysfunction.. the signpost well marked
by the WWI doctor, Dr. Gordon Holmes.


spotter109
Grid *n
Truk Island, South Pacific