C. West Churchman - Scientist Quotes

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The scientist has to have a way of thinking about the environment of a system that is richer and more subtle than a mere looking at for boundaries. He does this by noting that, when we say that something lies 'outside' the system, we mean that system can do relatively little about its characteristics or its behavior. Environment, in effect, makes up the things and people that are 'fixed' or 'given', from the system's point of view.

C. West Churchman
However a systems problem is solved—by a planner, scientist, politician, antiplanner, or whomever—the solution is wrong, even dangerously wrong. There is bound to be deception in any approach to the system.

C. West Churchman
Scientists whose work has no clear, practical implications would want to make their decisions considering such things as:
the relative worth of (1) more observations, (2) greater scope of his conceptual model, (3) simplicity, (4) precision of language, (5) accuracy of the probability assignment.

C. West Churchman
For the scientist a model is also a way in which the human though processes can be amplified. This method often takes the form of models that can be programmed into computers. At no point, however, the scientist intend to loose control of the situation because off the computer does some of his thinking for him. The scientist controls the basic assumptions and the computer only derives some of the more complicated implications.

C. West Churchman
What seems to emerge is not a moral reprimand of the management scientist, but rather a moral problem of the profession, a wicked moral problem.

C. West Churchman