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C. West Churchman

67 quotes

“Ethical judgments can be [should be] included in the scope of science”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Cited in: John P. van Gigch (2006) Wisdom, Knowledge, and Management. p. 2
“The individuation process, as the way of development and maturation of the psyche, does not follow a straight line, nor does it always lead onwards and upwards. The course it follows is rather “stadial”, consisting of progress and regress, flux and stagnation in alternating sequence. Only when we glance back over a long stretch of the way can we notice the development. If we wish to mark out the way somehow or other, it can equally well be considered a “spiral”, the same problems and motifs occurring again and again on different levels.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 216; cited by Jolande Jacobi (1983) The way of individuation. p. 34, translation of Der Weg zur Individuation. Rascher, Zürich 1965
“If the chance of error alone were the sole basis for evaluating methods of inference, we would never reach a decision, but would merely keep increasing the sample size indefinitely.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 255; cited in The Journal of the American Forensic Association. Vol 20-22 (1984), p. 180
“There would be cases where we would not want to accept an hypothesis even though the evidence gives a high d.c. [degree of confirmation] score, because we are fearful of the consequences of a wrong decision.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 256; cited in Sharyn Clough (2003) Siblings Under the Skin: Feminism, Social Justice, and Analytic Philosophy. p. 284
“The complete analysis of the methods of scientific inference shows that the theory of inference in science demands the use of ethical judgments”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 256; cited in Douglas, H.E. (2009) Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal
“[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 (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 248 as cited in: Douglas, H.E. (2009) Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal
“[C. West Churchman exposed the indifferentist position of some researchers — planners belonging to this school in the following terms:] And if our clients blow up the world, land us in starvation or totalitarianism, that is too bad, but we remained pure in heart to the last, didn't we?”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 412 as cited in: Bogdan Mieczkowski, Oleg Zinam (1984) Bureaucracy, ideology, technology: quality of life East and West. p. 97
“Another way of emphasizing this diversity is to argue that if one cannot forecast (predict), one does not have a theory, and that forecasting is the weakest link in the chain of the management sciences at present. Indeed, if one cannot predict one cannot measure, and if one cannot measure, then there is no "theory.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This text grew from the lecture material for the "Short Course in Operations Research" which has been offered annually (since 1952) by Case Institute of Technology.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No science has ever been born on a specific day. Each science emerges out of a convergence of an increased interest in some class of problems and the development of scientific methods, techniques, and tools which are adequate to solve these problems. Operations Research (O.R.) is no exception. Its roots are as old as science and the management function. Its name dates back only to 1940.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 3; Partly cited in: Ivor Grattan-Guinness (2003) Companion encyclopedia of the history and philosophy of the mathematical sciences, Vol 1. p. 841
“O.R.'s initial development began in the United Kingdom during World War II and was quickly taken up in the United States. This start took place in a military context. After the war O.R. moved into business, industry and civil government. This movement was slower in the United States than in the United Kingdom but in 1951 industrial O.R. took hold in this country and has since developed very rapidly.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An objective of O.R. as it emerged from this evolution of industrial organization, is to provide managers of the organizations with a scientific basis for solving problems involving the interaction of the components of the organization in the best interest of the organization as a whole. A decision which is best for the organization as a whole is called optimum decision.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) first seen 1913 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 6; Partly cited in: (2004) "In memory of C. West Churchman (1913–2004)." Journal of Organisational Transformation and Social Change. Vol 1 (Nr. 2–3) p. 210
“The comprehensiveness of OR’s aim is an example of a ‘systems’ approach, since ‘system’ implies an interconnected complex of functionally related components.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 7; cited in (2004, p. 210)
“This text is oriented toward human organizations since this has been the emphasis in the practice of O.R. in business and industry.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The concern of OR with finding an optimum decision, policy, or design is one of its essential characteristics. It does not seek merely to define a better solution to a problem than the one in use; it seeks the best solution... [It] can be characterized as the application of scientific methods, techniques, and tools to problems involving the operations of systems so as to provide those in control of the operations with optimum solutions to the problems.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 8, cited in: R.L. McCown (2001) "Learning to bridge the gap between science-based decision support and the practice of farming". In: Aust. J. Agric. Res., Vol 52, p. 560-561
“Analysis of the mathematical form and underlying principles of games was made by von Neumann " as early as 1928. In this early work von Neumann was not so much interested in executive-type problems as he was in the logical foundations of quantum mechanics. It was not until 1944, when von Neumann and Morgenstern published their now well known Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, that the mathematical treatment of games "took fire.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 519: Partly cited in: E. Roy Weintraub (1992) Toward a history of game theory. p. 235
“We have overwhelming evidence that available information plus analysis does not lead to knowledge. The management science team can properly analyse a situation and present recommendations to the manager, but no change occurs. The situation is so familiar to those of us who try to practice management science that I hardly need to describe the cases.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: C. West Churchman, "Managerial acceptance of scientific recommendations" in California Management Review, Vol 7 (1964), p. 33; cited in Management Systems (1971), by Peter P. Schoderbek, p. 199
“How can we design improvement in large systems without understanding the whole system, and if the answer is that we cannot, how is it possible to understand the whole system?”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: C. West Churchman, Challenge to Reason (1968), p. 2; cited in '" C. West Churchman — 75 years" by Werner Ulrich, in Systems Practice (December 1988), Volume 1, Issue 4, p. 341-350
“[ Wicked problems are ] social problems which are ill formulated, where the information is confusing, where there are many clients and decision-makers with conﬂicting values, and where the ramiﬁcations in the whole system are thoroughly confusing.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Deception, in turn , suggests morality: the morality of deceiving people into thinking something is so when it is not.[...] The moral principle is this: whoever attempts to tame a part of a wicked problem, but not the whole, is morally wrong.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 142 cited in: Rob Hundman (2010) Weerbarstig veranderen. p. 38
“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 (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 142 cited in: Rob Hundman (2010) Weerbarstig veranderen. p. 38
“Lindblom (1959) and Churchman (1967) make it clear that the assumption of synoptic or complete rationality in planning systems is not only inadequate in a methodological sense, but illegitimate in an ethical or professional sense.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: J.I. MacLellan (2009). "Brokering the Local Global Dialectic". In: Linking Climate and Impact Models to Decision and Policy Making. Edited by A. Fenech, and J.I. MacLellan. Environment Canada, Toronto. The first referen…
“When one is considering systems it's always wise to raise questions about the most obvious and simple assumptions.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is sheer nonsense to expect that any human being has yet been able to attain such insight into the problems of society that he can really identify the central problems and determine how they should be solved. The systems in which we live are far too complicated as yet for our intellectual powers and technology to understand.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The problem of systems improvement is the problem of the 'ethics of the whole system'.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The idea of a ‘system approach’ is both quite popular and quite unpopular. It’s popular because it sounds good to say that the whole system is being considered, but it’s quite unpopular because it sounds either like a lot of nonsense or else downright dangerous – so much evil can be created under the guise of serving the whole.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are always obliged to think about the larger system. If we fail to do this, then our thinking becomes fallacious.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The ultimate meaning of the systems approach, therefore, lies in the creation of a theory of deception and in a fuller understanding of the ways in which the human being can be deceived about his world and in an interaction between these different viewpoints.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The management of a system has to deal with the generation of the plans for the system, i.e., consideration of all of the things we have discussed, the overall goals, the environment, the utilization of resources and the components. The management sets the component goals, allocates the resources, and controls the system performance.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In general, we can say that the larger the system becomes, the more the parts interact, the more difficult it is to understand environmental constraints, the more obscure becomes the problem of what resources should be made available, and deepest of all, the more difficult becomes the problem of the legitimate values of the system.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) first seen 1978 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 77; cited in John Gall (1978) Systemantics; how systems work... and especially how they fail
“The ultimate meaning of the systems approach . . . lies in the creation of a theory of deception and in a fuller understanding of the ways in which the human being can be deceived about (her) his world, and in the interaction between these different viewpoints.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 229; cited in Charles Smith (2007) "Deception Meets Enlightenment: From a Viable Theory of Deception to a Quirk About Humanity's Potential". In: World Futures Vol 63, p. 42
“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 (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 229; cited in Charles Smith (2007, p. 43)
“It's not as though we can expect that next year or a decade from now someone will find the correct systems approach and all deception will disappear. This, in my opinion, is not in the nature of systems. What is in the nature of systems is a continuing perception and deception, a continuing re-viewing of the world, of the whole system, and of its components. The essence of the systems approach, therefore, is confusion as well as enlightenment. The two are inseparable aspects of human living.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 231; cited in Charles Smith (2007, p. 44)
“A systems approach begins when first you see the world through the eyes of another.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 231; cited in Michael C. Jackson (2003) Systems Thinking: Creative Holism for Managers. p. 139
“There are no experts in the systems approach”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The systems approach is not a bad idea”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Operations research '(OR) is the securing of improvement in social systems by means of scientific method”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: C. West Churchman, "Operations research as a profession" (1970); cited in Arjang A. Assad, Saul I. Gass (2011) Profiles in Operations Research: Pioneers and Innovators. p. 181
“The systems approach goes on to discovering that every world-view is terribly restricted.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: C. West Churchman, (1970) cited in: Michael C. Jackson ( 1992) Systems Methodology for the Management Sciences. p. 137
“To know that we are measuring real change we need to have a strong theoretical base.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: C. West Churchman, (1970) in: Systems and management annual. Vol 1, p. 338
“A system may actually exist as a natural aggregation of component parts found in Nature, or it may be a man-contrived aggregation – a way of looking at a problem which results from a deliberate decision to assume that a set of elements are related and constitute such a thing called ‘a system.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: C. West Churchman, , I. Auerbach, and Simcha Sadam (1975) Thinking for Decisions Deduction Quantitative Methods. Science Research Associates. cited in: John P. van Gigch (1978) Applied General Systems Theory. Harper & R…
“Knowledge can be considered as a collection of information, or as an activity, or as a potential. If we think of it as a collection of information, then the analogy of a computer's memory is helpful, for we can say that knowledge about something is like the storage of meaningful and true strings of symbols in a computer.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 9; cited in Daniel J. Power (2004) Decision Support Systems: Frequently Asked Questions. p. 23
“To conceive of knowledge as a collection of information seems to rob the concept of all of its life. Knowledge resides in the user and not in the collection. It is how the user reacts to a collection of information that matters.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 10; cited in Daniel J. Power (2004) Decision Support Systems: Frequently Asked Questions, p. 23
“Knowledge is a potential for a certain type of action, by which we mean that the action would occur if certain tests were run. For example, a library plus its user has knowledge if a certain type of response will be evoked under a given set of stipulations.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Design, properly viewed, is an enormous liberation of the intellectual spirit, for it challenges this spirit to an unbounded speculation about possibilities.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 13; cited in Jong S. Jun, Frank P. Sherwood (2007) The Social Construction of Public Administration. p. 76
“The religious Weltanschauung, … describes a certain kind of relationship – such as love, adoration and obedience – between men and other men, or between men and some superior being. or between men and "Nature".”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 238 as cited in: Charles François (2006) "Ethics and enlightened personal responsibility" in: Wisdom, Knowledge, and Management. C.West Churchman and Related Works Series Volume 2, 2006, pp 161-168
“Inquiry is the creation of knowledge or understanding; it is the reaching out of a human being beyond himself to a perception of what he may be or could be, or what the world could be or ought to be.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Cited in: John Zeisel (1984) Inquiry by design: tools for environment-behavior research. p. 3
“Common to all these enemies is that none of them accepts the reality of the "whole system": we do not exist in such a system. Furthermore, in the case of morality, religion, and aesthetics, at least a part of our reality reality as human is not "in" any system, and yet it plays a central role in our lives. To me these enemies provide a powerful way of learning about the systems approach, precisely because they enable the rational mind to step outside itself and to observe itself (from the vantage point of the enemies).”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 24; Partly as cited in: Reynolds, Martin (2003). "Social and Ecological Responsibility: A Critical Systemic Perspective." In: Critical Management Studies Conference 'Critique and Inclusively: Opening the Agenda'; in …
“We must face the reality that the enemies offer: what's really happening in the human world is politics, or morality, or religion, or aesthetics. This confrontation with reality is totally different from the rational approach, because the reality of the enemies cannot be conceptualized, approximated, or measured.”
C. West Churchman (1913–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source