Principles

The biological laws that govern organizational dynamics

These aren't metaphors - they're mathematical relationships discovered in biology that apply equally to organizations. Kleiber's Law governs how metabolism scales with size. The competitive exclusion principle determines who survives in a niche. Understanding these principles transforms intuition into prediction.

10 Laws & Principles
6 Categories

Scaling

Mathematical relationships that govern how systems change with size

Kleiber's Law

"Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the 3/4 power (M^0.75)"

Max Kleiber 1932

Surface Area to Volume Law

"As size increases, volume grows faster than surface area (volume ∝ L³, surface area ∝ L²)"

Derived from basic geometry, biological implications explored by J.B.S. Haldane and others Classical (geometry), 1926 (Haldane's biological application)

Allen's Rule

"Endothermic animals in colder climates have shorter limbs and appendages than those in warmer climates"

Joel Asaph Allen 1877

Bergmann's Rule

"Endothermic animals in colder climates tend to be larger than related species in warmer climates"

Carl Bergmann 1847

Competition

Laws governing competition, coexistence, and ecological dynamics

Competitive Exclusion Principle (Gause's Law)

"Two species competing for the same limiting resource cannot coexist indefinitely - one will outcompete the other"

Georgy Gause 1934

Resources

Principles about resource limitation, allocation, and constraints

Liebig's Law of the Minimum

"Growth is limited not by total resources but by the scarcest resource"

Carl Sprengel, popularized by Justus von Liebig 1840

Evolution

Fundamental laws of evolutionary change and adaptation

Red Queen Hypothesis

"Species must constantly evolve just to maintain their relative fitness, because competing species are also evolving"

Leigh Van Valen 1973

Cope's Rule

"Animal lineages tend to increase in body size over evolutionary time"

Edward Drinker Cope 1896

Distribution

Statistical patterns that appear across natural and social systems

Pareto Principle (Power Law Distribution)

"In many systems, roughly 80% of effects come from 20% of causes"

Vilfredo Pareto (observed), various (mathematical formalization) 1896

Design

Principles governing the evolution of form and structure

Constructal Law

"For a finite-size flow system to persist in time, it must evolve toward providing easier access to the currents that flow through it"

Adrian Bejan 1996