:Analogies for Sustainable Development/Analogies from A-Z


Note that the inclusion of an analogy in this Wikiversity Learning Project does not mean it is "true" or "solid" in a scientific sense. Indeed, some of the entries listed below are offered as a for tool critiquing the nature of narrative and analogy in sustainability discourse precisely because they break down easily upon inspection and yet may be commonly employed to further a particular viewpoint. Analogies are tools for thinking, please use the entries and resources below to help you explore deeper into the complexities of the sustainability topics you care about.


Adaptive flexibility as musical instrument
Adaptive flexibility as grass in the wind
All learning as transfer of learning
Biomimicry as analogy
Brain as collective action
Brain as common pool resource
Brain as Computer, Brain as Internet
Brain as dual mode camera
Brain as evolutionary ecosystem
Brain as garden
Brain as moral tongue
Brain as onion
Cancer
Capitalism as a Dialectic of Dynamism and Decency
Children as scientists
Cities as organs
Cities as (super)organisms
Concepts as species
Cooperation as sitting in the same boat
Corruption as cancer
Earth as organism (Gaia hypothesis)
Ecosystem as organism
Elephant and the Rider
Evolutionary process as Immune system
Evolutionary process as Innovation
Evolutionary process as Learning
Global Village
Health as homeostasis
Homeostasis as mental health
Homeostasis as group design principles
Homo economicus
Homo evolutis
Homo politicus
Human society as organism
Human society as beehive
Humans as cancer
Insect agriculture as human agriculture
Innovation as emergent property
Knowledge as bricks
Knowledge transfer as transfer of learning in the collective brain
Major transitions as a boat race
Maps as analogies
Multilevel selection as fans on a billiard table
Networked Complexity
Neural networks as telephone wires
Neural networks as road networks
Organism as multi-cellular society
Parable of the Commons
Parable of the New Pastures
Sacred circling & moral magnetism
Scientific disciplines and theories as islands in an Ivory Archipelago
Scientific disciplines and theories as languages
Schools as organs
Schools as superorganisms
Selection as winnowing
Selfish Gene
Social learning as collective brain
Social Learning as a Jazz Band
Social Learning as bees
Social Genome
Species of thought
System 1- System 2
Transfer of learning as evolutionary information processing
Tribalism as politics, as football teams
Universities as organs
Universities as superorganisms
Wikipedia as collective brain
Working memory as holding things in your hand
90% Chimp, 10% Bee, 100% Human