Thinking in Systems

Scientist Donella Meadows — co-author of The Limits of Growth – reports that people often seek reductive, linear solutions to life’s problems, for example, in politics, economics, or medicine. People yearn for straightforward solutions and a simple cause-and-effect chain of events. However, the world doesn’t work that way: instead, as she explains, it operates through complex, interconnected systems governed by feedback loops.

Systems Thinking

Since the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, people in Western societies have approached problems through science, linear reasoning, and various forms of reductive thinking. For example, if a crop is rotting in its field, the solution is to find and destroy the parasite attacking it.