https://blog.georgefabish.com/tags/donella_meadows/ Recent content in Donella_meadows on George's Blog Hugo en-US Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://blog.georgefabish.com/reviews/thinking-in-systems/ Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:33:28 -0500 https://blog.georgefabish.com/reviews/thinking-in-systems/ <p><strong>Summary</strong></p> <blockquote> <p>I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated. -Poul Anderson</p> </blockquote> <p>Donella Meadows was an integral part of a group out of MIT who pioneered the art of &ldquo;systems analysis&rdquo;. How does one analyze a system? It starts by defining what the essence of a system is. According to Meadows a system is a group of things material or immaterial that interrelate to cause a behavior which persists through time. In plain English, behaviors are things we observe like floods or forest fires. Systems are the relevant variables that have an effect on the observed behavior, like rain or ground cover. In analysis, behavior is typically the easy thing to observe while defining the variables that constitute the system underneath can be quite a task and isn&rsquo;t solved but often requires flexibility and good judgement.</p>