The Age of the Unthinkable

Holling and a team of mathematicians and biologists also found examples of the opposite sorts of systems, filled with what he called a “perverse resilience,” that insisted on preserving bad ideas. In such “maladaptive systems,” Holling explained, “any novelty is either smothered or its inventor ejected. It would represent a rigidity trap.” Such systems might look good for a while, but when they are hit with the unexpected, they react in ways that doom them. They simply can’t shed their wrong ideas fast enough. Sound familiar?