II

Scope and Scale

Just as adaptive systems exist and have parts and environments on different scales, so also the processes that scaffold their activities and capabilities occur on and sometimes bridge multiple scales—both temporally and physically. And just as the properties that are causally stable and salient at the different scales vary as new modes of order emerge on larger scales, so also the means of scaffolding change with the capabilities and activities they facilitate. In this second section, we sample three different cases that are as diverse as possible to hint at the range of scaffolding processes and the diversity of modes of reproduction and entrenchment, and the natural collectivities (or core configurations in the broadest sense) that are relevant. Newman and Evans anchor two extremes of scale for entrenchment and scaffolding, from mesophysics of cellular adhesion to the communication structures and shared assumptions within and between scientific disciplines, spanning the scope of our discussions. Various kinds of models can be used to understand scope and scale; in effect, the models themselves scaffold thinking about complex systems, and the ways in which models scaffold problem solving and cognition are the subject matter of Schank and colleagues’ essay.

Newman has been an ingenious expositor of how basic physical processes such as diffusion and cell adhesion play a role in the emergence of morphological complexity. Properties that emerge as generic or robust at a given level can scaffold constructions that take these for granted, and his fundamental claim is that basic physical processes acting on, in, and between cells generate forms that can then be further anchored and made more robust through the activity of genetic regulatory networks. He exploits this to argue that egg patterning processes and generic constraints can explain both the bottom widening and subsequent narrowing of variation in the “hourglass” found in development—a noted conundrum in the evolution of development.

Evans explores the transformations in communication and data management that have emerged with the Internet and the analysis of the emerging massive databases whose collection and utilization is made possible by emerging hardware and software technologies. In communications he explores how the broader range of information accessible tends to lead to more rapid convergence of ideas, and how standardization of units of reference (citation lists) both aids in this convergence and facilitates the analysis of scientific processes (such as the hybridization of disciplines) at a new metalevel. Surprising insights emerge—such as the discovery that industry appears to favor risky innovation (in the service of new products) more than increasingly conservative university and foundation-sponsored research—countering the accepted view that basic research is more unfettered than application-dominated investigation. Here values emerge to scaffold research directions in a surprising manner.

With illustrations from the middle range of analysis of the social interactions of huddling rat pups, but conclusions that could apply anywhere in science, Schank and colleagues weave an intricate story of constructing and investigating a succession of models, each driven by analysis of limitations of the preceding ones, and using their failures to determine directions for elaboration. The simplifications in the models scaffold research as their differences with the real phenomena direct attention to specific aspects of the situation that demand more realistic treatment. This investigation proceeds in a tree-like fashion, to explore different paths of analysis because the phenomena are too complex to build models that capture all of the relevant details of the investigated system. In this Schank and collaborators consider data models and simulation models and, in an attempt to capture the physical reality of rat pups interacting, construct and study the interactions of soft-bodied robots, with details of each playing off to illuminate strengths and weaknesses of the others. These three studies span types of cases in ways reflecting the scope of our volume, with scaffolding in development and evolution (Newman), in cognition (Schank et al.), and in culture (Evans), and provide a nice beginning to our substantive conversations.