BCSSS

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access.

About

The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics was first edited and published by the system scientist Charles François in 1997. The online version that is provided here was based on the 2nd edition in 2004. It was uploaded and gifted to the center by ASC president Michael Lissack in 2019; the BCSSS purchased the rights for the re-publication of this volume in 200?. In 2018, the original editor expressed his wish to pass on the stewardship over the maintenance and further development of the encyclopedia to the Bertalanffy Center. In the future, the BCSSS seeks to further develop the encyclopedia by open collaboration within the systems sciences. Until the center has found and been able to implement an adequate technical solution for this, the static website is made accessible for the benefit of public scholarship and education.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

HANDICAP 2)4)5)

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The relative cost advantage or disadvantage of producing a signal or an output in relation to the level of resources available to its transmitter.

This appearently abstract definition widely applies among animals and humans. "In 1982, evolutionary biologists W. HAMILTON and M. ZUK proposed a new handicap hypothesis that forged a link between the quality of individuals and their sexual signals ". In essence, only males with genes for, say, parasitic resistance would be in prime condition and thus able to express the best sexual signals" (M. WALKER, 2000, p.23). WALKER observes that, in more subtle ways, this is even true for human males.

Based on this observation, A. ZAHAVI proposed what he calls the "handicap principle ", which is in essence a quite general evolutive selection mechanism (Ibid).

In human societies at different levels, the validity of the handicap principle is also probable. Powerful organizations, with an abundance of available resources, are able to resist strong perturbations, and to promote themselves in a more efficient manner.

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

Publisher

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).

To cite this page, please use the following information:

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]

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