Turchin V.F. The Phenomenon of Science: A Cybernetic Approach to Human Evolution

Columbia University Press, 1977. — 348 p. — ISBN: 0231039832.This is the first book to introduce the ideas of Metasystem Transitions Theory. It is directed at a broad, non-specialised public, and requires not more than high school mathematics. It discusses the evolution of humanity, starting from the first living cells up to human culture and science. It shows how the great advances in intelligence and cognition, from simple reflexes, to learning, thought, mathematical reasoning and the most advanced realms of metascientic analysis, can be understood as metasystem transitions, in which a higher level of control emerges. Its originality lies in the integration of a cybernetic analysis of knowledge with the trial and error process of natural selection, which creates ever higher levels in the hierarchical organization of mind.