chaophilia en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- /ˌkeɪɒˈfɪlɪə/ (Received-Pronunciation)
- kā'ŏfĭʹlĭə (Received-Pronunciation)
Etymology
From chao- + -philia. By surface analysis, chao- + -phile + -i- + -a.
Meanings
-
(nonce-word, rare, uncountable) Spurious overemphasis of or oversubscription to chaos theory or its characteristic concepts.
[H]ow can we not deplore the all too frequent distortions of “importations” by anthropologists who think they are “hardening” their discipline by consistently using the language of the “hard” sciences? This is a particularly pernicious form of popularization…Whence the “Gödelism,” “chaophilia,” and other “complexolatries” of certain social scientists, who are doing nothing to help their own disciplines[.]
1997, ICPHS, Diogenes, issues 177–180, page 179