The very complexity of the natural systems with which the epidemiologist is faced often makes it difficult to tell which of the correlations that he observers are biologically significant. This difficulty is not lessened by the fact that it is quite easy to invent hypothesis that would, if they were true, fit attractively into our puzzle. It is much less easy to determine whether they are true or not; and this step has been omitted with a surprising frequency.
- Topley, 1942, from the Epigraph of Evolution of Virulence in an Experimental Bacteriophage System, PhD Thesis, Sharon Lee Messenger, 1997, University of Texas, Austin. (reference provide by biology student son)
So when there is a conjecture that agile software development is like a biological system or like a physical system, I wonder if the true understanding of what that means is known to the speaker? This whole notion of adopting scientific analogies for use in simple and many times simple minded applications to software development is very sporty business, if there is not a clear statement that the connection is purely "notional" and made of illustrative purposes only, having no connection what so ever to reality.
