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Discusses the differences between systemic social research and conventional, non‐systemic empirical research. Outlines paradigmatically the major stages, methodological decisions and results of an empirical project. Focuses on intimate communication and AIDS prevention. Distinguishes four different intimate system types. These system types are shown to influence the risk management of an HIV infection. Sociocybernetic empirical research implies typically systemic approaches in the major phases of the research process: reframing; observing observations; selecting and distinguishing; and intervening indirectly.

To present a new approach to scientific thinking (paradigm) that avoids the shortcomings and inconsistencies of the prevailing Newtonian approach.

The signs of a science in crisis are reviewed and some of its shortcomings are compiled and connected to some misleading fundamental assumptions of the reigning paradigm of science. Calls attention to a current fundamental misunderstanding of the human capacity of observation – especially the negligence of the conceptual feedback loops of the human mind that make up the core of human learning capacity.

When using a subject‐oriented approach (SOA) to science, which takes off from the individual knowing the subject (methodological solipsism), it is possible to consistently construct a knower's science where all today's misleading assumptions can be successfully removed. This effort results in an abstract constructivist epistemology, where the reversed cause‐effect chain severely upsets the classically trained mind – especially in natural science.

There is a great deal of work left to examine the soundness of these ideas and pave the way for such a profound re‐orientation of traditional science that as a first step will be concerned with elucidating and explicating a wide range of problems and concerns in set and decision theory, logic, and mathematics. This is essentially to launch a research programme in these areas that as a next step includes all natural and social sciences that will appear in a new light when viewed from a first person, SOA.

There is no other way for science to evade the prevailing crisis but to involve, in its very Kuhnian sense, a radical change of paradigm. In this view, the realist confusion, which is responsible for the genesis of Cartesian dualism and a row of other inconsistencies met with intoday's science, will slowly vanish, as will the embarrassing gulf between the natural and social sciences as well as humanism. This new “world‐view” that seems radical to the scientist will appear natural to the everyday man – but its impact on human culture will be monumental.

The SOA to science is based on a reversed cause‐effect thinking that will have a heavy influence on the way people think about the world and is accordingly a concern of all human beings as well as each researcher – of whatever of discipline.

The purpose of this paper is to sketch the most valuable contribution of Dr Rose to the development of social cybernetics over the period 1975‐1995.

The paper is based on an analysis of the proceedings of the sections on “Social Systems” or “Social Cybernetics” of the WOSC conferences from 1978 through 1991, and on an analysis of the entries of the Bibliography on Social Cybernetics (1998).

The sections on “Social Systems” of the International Congresses on Systems and Cybernetics, initiated by Dr Rose, provided in the period 1978‐1995 the most important meeting point for social scientists aiming at the application of the cybernetic approach to social systems and social processes, and for cyberneticians wanting to use the principles of cybernetics for the analysis and solution of social problems.

The paper shows how the journal Kybernetes, founded by Dr Rose, became the most frequently used publication medium of social cyberneticians: of the 184 papers on social cybernetics mentioned in this bibliography 76 (41 per cent) were published in Kybernetes, more than in any other journal in the domain of cybernetics or social science.

Recent doubts about whether social systems can be controlled in a cybernetic sense depend upon a view of cybernetics that overemphasizes communication, information processing and feedback at the expense of what computer scientists call preprocessing: the conscious selection and structuring of information to facilitate its processing. Much as rationalization was a complement to bureaucratic control in Max Weber's time, the preprocessing of information, prior to its processing by computer, serves societal control today. Indeed, phenomena like rationalization and symbolization can be viewed as forms of preprocessing; they facilitate the crucial control function of self‐referencing. US census data show a monotonic increase in the percentage of the work force engaged in preprocessing relative to the other informational activities: synthesizing, programming and processing.

Aims to explains the mismatches between political discourse and military momentum in the US handling of the Cuban missile crisis by using the model of the potential autopoiesis of subsystems. Under wartime conditions, the codes of political and military communications can increasingly be differentiated.

The model of a further differentiation between political and military power is developed on the basis of a detailed description of the Cuban missile crisis. The concept of a “semi‐dormant autopoiesis” is introduced for the difference in the dynamics between peacetime and wartime conditions.

Several dangerous incidents during the crisis can be explained by a sociocybernetic model focusing on communication and control, but not by using an organization‐theoretical approach. The further differentiation of the military as a subsystem became possible in the course of the twentieth century because of ongoing learning processes about previous wars.

Politicians should not underestimate autonomous military processes or the significance of standing orders. In order to continually produce communications within the military, communication partners are needed that stand outside the hierarchy, and this role can be fulfilled by an enemy. A reflexively imagined enemy can reinforce the autopoiesis of the military subsystem.

The paper shows that civilian control over military affairs has become structurally problematic and offers a sociocybernetic explanation of the missile crisis. The potential alternation in the dynamics under peacetime and wartime conditions brings historical specificity back on the agenda of social systems theory.

Briefly reviews the standard Poisson distribution and then examines a set of derivative, modified Poisson distributions for testing hypotheses derived from positive deviation‐amplifying feedback models, which do not lend themselves to ordinary statistically based hypothesis testing. The “reinforcement” or “contagious” Poisson offers promise for a subset of such models, in particular those models with data in the form of rates (rather than magnitudes). The practical difficulty lies in distinguishing reinforcement effects from initial heterogeneity, since both can form negative binomial distributions, with look‐alike data. Illustrates these difficulties, and also opportunities, for various feedback models employing the self‐fulfilling prophecy, and especially for confidence loops, which incorporate particular self‐fulfilling prophecies as part of a larger dynamic process. Describes an actual methodology for testing hypotheses regarding confidence loops with the aid of a “reinforcement” Poisson distribution, as well as its place within sociocybernetics.