Technology May Create A Condition, But The

The Social Sciences, I Thought, Needed The Same Kind Of Rigor And The Same Mathematical Underpinnings That Had Made The 'hard' Sciences So Brilliantly Successful.

Solving A Problem Simply Means Representing It So As To Make The Solution Transparent.

The Aim ... Is To Provide A Clear And Rigorous Basis For Determining When A Causal Ordering Can Be Said To Hold Between Two Variables Or Groups Of Variables In A Model . . . . The Concepts Refer To A Model-a System Of Equations-and Not To The 'real' World The Model Purports To Describe.

Engineers Are Not The Only Professional Designers. Everyone Designs Who Devises Courses Of Action Aimed At Changing Existing Situations Into Preferred Ones. The Intellectual Activity That Produces Material Artefacts Is No Different Fundamentally From The One That Prescribes Remedies For A Sick Patient Or The One That Devises A New Sales Plan For A Company Or A Social Welfare Policy For A State.

Human Beings, Viewed As Behaving Systems, Are Quite Simple. The Apparent Complexity Of Our Behavior Over Time Is Largely A Reflection Of The Complexity Of The Environment In Which We Find Ourselves.