Crisis in its simplest terms is defined as an upset in a steady state... the habitual problem-solving activities are not adequate and do not rapidly … - Anatol Rapoport

We live in an age of belief-belief in the omnipotence of science. This belief is bolstered by the fact that the problems scientists are called on to solve are for the most part selected by the scientists themselves.

No map contains all the information about the territory it represents. The road map we get at the gasoline station may show all the roads in the state, but it will not as a rule show latitude and longitude. A physical map goes into details about the topography of a country but is indifferent to political boundaries. Furthermore, the scale of the map makes a big difference. The smaller the scale the less features will be shown.

[It is a] well-known fact that the likely contacts of two individuals who are closely acquainted tend to be more overlapping than those of two arbitrarily selected individuals