We have been badly in need of a framework that explains the certainty and uncertainty associated with outcomes
Taken from An essay on complex adaptive systems
For the most part, social scientists and practitioners are trained erroneously in believing that social change phenomena, much like “raising a child,” can be predicted, controlled, and achieved in linear steps and with a high degree of certainty. This problematic prevailing mindset “if we do this to people, they will behave in this way” is a result of the overwhelming dominance of Newtonian thinking that spilled over to social science and was reified over decades without much questioning. To question this prevailing paradigm meant turning upside down the Holy Grail and inviting derision and condescension about “not being scientific enough.” The notion that the thoughts and actions of human beings could be predicted and measured in the same way as the movement of heavenly bodies seemed to me as being downright faulty.
The social change enterprise, in my opinion, was badly in need of a framework that could explain the certainty and uncertainty associated with outcomes, as also the agreement and disagreement about how those outcomes could be achieved. What we needed was a framework that could explain why small inputs in a social system could result in surprisingly big outcomes; and why often big, expensive interventions yielded small, dismal outcomes. We also needed a framework that could account for the simultaneous order and disorder in a system, as well as the co-existence of paradoxes and contradictions.
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