Systems-Thinking on deep ecology

Profile: Fritjof Capra

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Fritjof Capra (born 1939) is an Austrian-born American physicist and systems theorist. His work examines connections between physics, biology, systems theory, and ecological philosophy.

Born in Vienna, Capra earned his PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Vienna in 1966. He conducted research in particle physics at the University of Paris (1966-1968), University of California Santa Cruz (1968-1970), Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (1970), Imperial College London (1971-1974), and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (1975-1988).

Profile: Tyson Yunkaporta

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Tyson Yunkaporta is an Aboriginal Australian scholar and member of the Apalech Clan in far north Queensland. He founded the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab at Deakin University and wrote Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World (2019), which examines how Aboriginal methods of inquiry address contemporary ecological and social challenges.

Yunkaporta’s work brings Aboriginal ways of knowing into dialogue with complexity science, examining how Indigenous thought represents systems thinking developed over tens of thousands of years. His methodology honors Aboriginal traditions of knowledge creation through “yarning” - collaborative dialogue through stories and mutual respect - and “sand talk,” the practice of drawing symbols in earth to convey complex ideas.

Profile: Gregory Bateson

Sun, 28 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Gregory Bateson (1904-1980) was an anthropologist, biologist, and cyberneticist whose groundbreaking work on systems thinking, learning theory, and the “ecology of mind” provided essential foundations for deep ecological understanding of consciousness and communication. His interdisciplinary approach revealed fundamental patterns connecting psychological, biological, and ecological systems.

Bateson’s early anthropological work led him to recognize that culture, mind, and nature operate according to similar systemic principles. His studies of communication patterns in humans and other animals revealed that information, not energy or matter, is the fundamental organizing principle of living systems - directly paralleling deep ecology’s understanding that all beings participate in networks of relationship and communication.

Quote: Joanna Macy; "All the world’s systems are interconnected; nothing exists in isolation."

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“All the world’s systems are interconnected; nothing exists in isolation.”
– Joanna Macy

Source: World as Lover, World as Self (1991)

Profile: Elisabet Sahtouris

Thu, 29 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Elisabet Sahtouris is an American and Greek evolution biologist, futurist, and author whose work emphasises how cooperation and symbiosis, rather than competition alone, drive evolutionary processes. Similarly to Lynn Margulis Her research on living systems theory offers scientific foundations for ecological worldviews that recognize nature’s inherent cooperative and self-organizing aspects.

Trained in evolution biology and microbiology, Sahtouris has dedicated her career to making evolutionary science accessible to wider audiences while revealing its implications for human society and economics. Her concept of “mature ecosystems” proposes that natural systems evolve from competitive to cooperative relationships, offering models for sustainable human civilization.

Profile: James Lovelock

Thu, 29 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

James Ephraim Lovelock (1919-2022) was an independent scientist who formulated the Gaia hypothesis in the early 1970s. Working outside academic institutions, he proposed that Earth functions as a self-regulating system through interactions between living organisms and planetary processes.

Lovelock invented the electron capture detector in 1957, which enabled the first measurements of widespread chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere. While designing instruments for NASA’s planetary exploration programs in the 1960s, he developed the conceptual framework that became the Gaia hypothesis.

Profile: Lynn Margulis

Thu, 29 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Lynn Margulis (1938-2011) was an American evolutionary biologist whose endosymbiotic theory proposed that complex cells arose through symbiotic mergers of simpler organisms. Her work emphasized cooperation and symbiosis as drivers of evolutionary innovation alongside competition.

Margulis proposed her theory in 1967, suggesting that complex cells with nuclei (eukaryotes) arose through symbiotic mergers of simpler bacterial cells. Her hypothesis that mitochondria and chloroplasts were once independent bacteria that became incorporated into larger cells faced initial resistance. Her paper “On the Origin of Mitosing Cells” was rejected by fifteen journals before publication. One grant application received the response: “Your research is crap.”