In my country, The Netherlands, a discussion between creationism and evolutionism has been rekindled. In this blog I want to share with you a few observations. I think this event is of interest to anyone involved in requirements engineering because it shows that we can become blind in our understanding if we are not aware of the metaphors that colour our vision.

Curious enough the discussion was prompted by a private initiative to distribute door-to-door a folder that attempts to discuss the theory of evolution. The folder attempts to show weaknesses in the theory, and wants to place at least some question marks to the "absolute belief" in the theory. The folder does not explicitly attempt to "convert" the reader to creationism and is set in a relatively reasonable tone.

The curious thing was not the folder itself, but the intensity of the response. This was out of proportion: the person behind the initiative has been threatened, hours have been spent discussing whether the distribution of the folder was "appropriate". In short: the folder struck a nerve!

Is Google Making Us Stupid? This article by Nicholas Carr struck me as an article that touches on an important subject that in a way feels denied or neglected in our society.

I am convinced of the fact that our thinking is morphed by our actions, specifically our way of dealing with language. Language is to me the mechanism that synchronises our inner world with the world outside us.

Human beings specifically, but life in general, are mirror-beings. We mirror the outside world, even on the cellular level. I tend to see our brains as immense mirror organs or sensory apparatus. It baffles me that the degree to which our inner reflections of the outside world are influenced or even determined by the language we employ (or languages for the lucky few among us, or for the really fortunate ones, different language families) is so totally unknown.

Developers need to lead the way in a business revolution

As much as I hail the growing insight that existing metaphors to build software are not sufficient or even detrimental, we still are in dire need of new metaphors.

David Korten talks about new stories that we need to tell, to tip the balance from the old world views that even for centuries have been retold and thus almost have become grafted into our genes. The new stories are based on other, different metaphors based on collaboration, on connecting, on creating abundance by frugality and sharing.