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2011年11月6日 星期日

SATM 1.1 Why Systems Thinking?

In the nature sciences it is often possible to test hypotheses by carrying out experiments in the laboratory into cause and effect among a limited number of elements, this proves extremely difficult with real-world problems. The significant factors involved do not easily identify themselves and the problem situation itself can seem to have no boundary. Another difficulty is that repeatable experiments are hard to carry out on real world problems when initial conditions are impossible to replicate. (Jackson, M.C., 2000, Systems Approaches to Management, Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, NY. P44)



Complex problems involve richly interconnected sets of "parts" and the relationships between the parts can be more important than the nature of the parts themselves.


Systems thinking, it is argued by Checkland (Systems Thinking, Systems Practice., 1981),  can be seen as a reaction to the failure of natural science when confronted with complex, real-world problems set in social systems. Systems thinkers advocate using "holism" rather than reductionism in such situations.


Holism does not seek to break down complex problem situations into their parts in order to study them and intervene in them. Rather, it respects the profound interconnectedness of the parts and concentrates on the relationship between them and how these often give rise to surprising outcomes - the emergent properties.


Systems thinking uses models rather than laboratory experiments to try to learn about the behavior of the world.

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