A few decades ago, I discovered a delightful little book on different types of decision-making. Written by Irwin Bross, an expert in cancer research, Design for Decision outlines four historic methods for making decisions:Animism, Logicism, Empiricism, ending with Bross's favorite, modern stastistical decision-makng. Below, I broach dogmas associated with these methodologies. It begins in Eden.

Adam is the first man to talk to the animals. And Eve is the first to talk to the flowers, trees, and other plants. And they find this natural. For propriety and bigotry are born outside of Eden, where all live as a family.

Adam looks on Eve and finds her different. Similarly Eve looks on Adam. And night and day they come to know each other.

And Adam and Eve look about at the animals and plants and rocks and hills. And find these different. Yet -- somehow --similar to themselves. And mere response of these "others" to human greeting presents no diplomatic problem. For Eve does not cease to carp or wheedle with a sullen Adam, nor he with a sulky Eve. Later, in the wilderness, East of Eden, they communicate with their babies. So, unless you're a card-carrying snoot, you continue conversing with a giraffe or a prickly pear, even when it seems shy or preoccupied.

Sometimes you talk to whatever is visible, or touchable, parambulating or quiescent -- out of friendliness. To give of companionship on days when your cup of feelings overflow. Or borrow a halfcup on days when you're stretched by a hyperbole of emptiness. Often you talk to discuss a decision you can no longer postpone.

"Adam, help me decide. Don't put me off again. You know I can't work it out alone! Should I try to patch Cain's loin cloth, or wait until shearing to make a new one?"

"Tree, I gotta chop you down -- for sake your neighbors -- an make you into a swell boat. You'll like that! Sailin down the purty river. But I dunno. Should I cut more on this side, and maybe you'll fall on my foot. Or chop that side and get knocked in the river? You ain't gonna hold a grudge -- are you?"

"River, I gotta get my sheeps other side. Sheeps hungry for all that greeny grass. Sheeps cry. So I gotta take em. But sheeps swim better than me. What I mean -- I ain't no fish. I cain't breathe water. So puleese! Be nice!"

Often descendants of Adam and Eve haven't the itchiest notion of what action to take. Or how to choose among options. So, frequently, they resort to decision-making via puffs of smoke, or the color of the entrails of animals. Sometimes they "cast lots", using the hucklebones of ruminants. Or they "draw lots" of black or white pebbles from urns.

And often the decision-maker -- forced to act as decision-seeker -- utters a prayer. Or makes an offering (bribe?) to the god or spirit or anima of the tree, or the river, or whatever -- to grant its blessing. Or permit the desired act of the petitioner.

Uppity experts today dismiss this form of decision-making as animism, calling it a "primitive religion". Ignoring similarity to current varieties of decision-making.

For example, the politician who orders and is guided by an opinion survey designed by biased sampling methods -- or consults a sample too small to be representative.

Again, the Pentagon or corporation R&D flack who promotes a project on the basis of "favorable data" collected from a pilot project for a device having no precedent, so that no basis for comparison exists.

And again, a network vice-president who cancels a TV show because of "low ratings" estimated by a survey service whose servers hope no one asks, "What statistical study established a significant correlation between TV-watching and Census demographics?" (Yeah, that's their tactic. But -- hey! -- that's "quota", supposed to be "unfair" in employing or admitting to schools. How duple doth the standard double?)

And again, the psychologist or anthropologist who proclaims that humans are (unwittingly) controlled by inner or outer forces which put humans through stages of development -- forces to which these modern tribal shamans are privy.

And, when things threaten to come "unglued", guess who's down on his knees, standin' in the need of the supernatural -- or the parapsychic?

Even the idea of openly appealing to spirits -- or, shall we say, "devils" -- should have a contemporary ring to your ears. In recent years THE MEDIA have discussed "increase" in "devil-worshipping" in this country. But their reporting is symptomatically silent as to whether this deviltry is monosatanic or polysatanic.

Sounds weird, this devil-worship. Unless you teeter on this tangent.

Here we are -- one Nation, under God -- under Modern Science and Technology -- except the power plants are becoming fickle -- and household gadgets throw tantrums -- and my new car's been recalled to keep the engine from dropping out -- and Mrs. Pickle's 11th Grade History Class was called on account of rain through the roof of that school we built a few years ago and haven't paid for -- and I really really don't like the way my electric razor looks at me these mornings to say nothing about the language my wife's hair-dryer uses -- so -- I've a growing feeling for some time that they -- I dunno -- spirits or gremlins or norns -- have been neglected far too long -- and before it's too late we'd better -- and sides I hear services are conducted over the belly of a nekkid woman -- and arterwurds thar's sssssexxxxxxxxxx orgies at coffee hour and on bingo nights -- so ---.

Thus, as to Animism, don't hoot it, until you admit you've tried it, in some form or other. And it is about the best decision-maker we humans have for many millenia.

That loveable lil old mathematician and philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, writes about a variant on Animism snuk in by philosophers (including any "natural philosopher" who changes his resumé to "scientist"), calling this variant "organismic thinking".

You treat whatever you wish to understand as an organism, not unlike yourself. And you say, "There, but for the grace of God, go I". Going as a planet around the sun, or moon orbiting the earth. A tree or bush. A boiling cauldron of tar. A vainglorious garlic onion. A cranky woodtick. Slippery ice. A scary thunderstorm. Sssssexxxxxxxxxual riot in the glands. Given a puzzler, you assume its role and ask, "How come I do these crazy things?"

Then, upon hearing confession, you dress your guess in pompous metaphysical or pseudo-scientific jargon. And publish it as a theory of the given phenomenon.

Ok, snicker. Snort. But sit down with a good English dictionary, perhaps Skeat's Etymology, a good Latin dictionary, and -- if you dig it -- a good Greek dictionary. And trace origins of the present "objective" terminology of the sciences (allegedly the most "advanced" of the pantheon) -- tracing back to animistic origins.

Searching, for example, into the taxonomy of plants or animals, you discover that some of those "heavy" words that snoot us-laity had (as had their speakers) very humble origins. Thus, some of those taxonomic terms, coined in lapidarian Latin, may have originated in something as simple and homey as "the screamer" -- "the nose-thumber" -- "the crotch-scratcher" -- or "old blue-bottom".

Haven't time for that research? Well, consider a tale from Galileo's time, encapsulating "organismic thinkng".

You may know that the English and Romance-language names of the days of the week are derived from names of the seven visible planets, including the sun and moon in ancient Greek thinking, but excluding earth (considered nonplanetary).

In the Middle Ages, it was argued that exactly seven planets exist because the normal human has seven holes in his head: two eyes, two earholes, two nostrils, and mouth. True! Seven gleaming holes in heaven because of seven dirt-catching holes in the head.

So, in the Renaissance, when Galileo turned his little telescope toward Jupiter and saw four moons orbiting this giant planet, contemporary scholastics decided that Galileo saw this because of extra holes in Galileo's head.