the late environmentalist, author, & philosopher
For more information about Edward Goldsmith please see the About page
This paper, presented by Goldsmith at the 20th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (Somerset Hotel, Boston, Mass. October 23-26, 1969), represents an early attempt to articulate, in highly technical terms, concepts that would become significantly revised and reconsidered in later versions. Published in Systematics: The Journal Of The Institute [...]
This interview, by Michael Glenny, was broadcast over Radio Free Europe around the time of the launch of The Ecologist in 1970, as part of the “Can We Survive Our Future” radio symposium. It was later published in an edited compendium of interviews broadcast between 1970 and 1971 on Radio Free Europe (Can we survive [...]
A cybernetic approach to the study of society and ecosystems. From Towards a Unified Science. contents · next chapter » Cybernetics is the science of control. The term was first used in this sense by Norbert Weiner in 1948 and it derives from the Greek word for a helmsman. Cyberneticians assume that things which act as [...]
This is the original editorial piece that launched The Ecologist in July 1970. The Planet Earth is unique in our solar system in displaying those environmental conditions required to sustain complex forms of life. In what are, in evolutionary terms, very recent times, its surface or biosphere has been seriously disturbed by two events giving [...]
A timely tale from an ancient Chinese legend After the fall of the Han Dynasty, China passed through an unstable century known as the period of the Warring States, during which it was divided into a number of independent countries often at war with each other. Foremost among these was the Kingdom of Wei, which [...]
A cybernetic approach to the study of societies and ecosystems. From Towards a Unified Science. In the first part of this article the author defined a “system”—a key concept of cybernetics—as an autonomous unit capable of adaptive behaviour. He then showed how societies and ecosystems could be regarded as specialized instances of a system. By [...]
Review of The Optimum Population For Britain, Symposium of the Institute of Biology No. 19. Edited by L. R. Taylor. Academic Press [See another review of this volume here] In one of the papers printed in this book the Rt. Hon. Douglas Houghton, M.P., says ‘Population increase in Britain is thought to be something to [...]
An early outline of Goldsmith’s general theory of behaviour or “unified science”, elements of which would be revised in later versions. From Towards a Unified Science, published in The Ecologist Vol. 1 No. 5, November 1970. Scientists are coming under increasing attack. To many they are doing more harm than good. Why is this so? [...]
