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Evaluating complex realities 1
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Reynolds, Martin |
| Copyright Year | 2014 |
| Abstract | Two parallel methodological developments and associated traditions of thinking have emerged within the global evaluation community in recent years specifically dealing with evaluating complex realities – complexity thinking and systems thinking. Complexity thinking draws on complexity science and the revelations regarding the incidence of non-linear interconnectedness amongst entities. The tradition makes a point of departure from normal Newtonian science caricatured as dealing with mechanistic linear relationships of simple cause and effect. Within the tradition of Newtonian scientific practice the evaluand is characterised as being ‘complicated’ rather than ‘complex’. Complicated situations have interconnected entities which can with various degrees of difficulty be nevertheless subject to the certainties of design or programming, are essentially predictable, and can be controlled. Complex situations, alternatively, are much less easy to plan, are essentially uncertain, unpredictable, and significantly uncontrollable. Perhaps the most familiar illustration of complexity is the ‘butterfly effect’ – the proposition by meteorologist Edward Lorenz in the 1960s that a flapping of a butterfly wings in South America may lead to significant weather events, such as a hurricane, at a far removed distance, say, North America. The effect works socially as well as biophysically. The on-going ‘Arab Spring’ events giving rise to national and international upheavals including the current crisis in Syria can be linked back to the personal action and tragedy of one disaffected individual in Tunisia being denied his livelihood opportunity to sell vegetables. |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://oro.open.ac.uk/39905/8/Connections%202014%20March%20MRv3.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
