TABLE OF CONTENTS Observe how system into system runs,
what other planets circle other sunsAlexander Pope, 1688 - 1744
This book is about systems science and systems engineering. The goal of the book is to create and present a rational, scientific basis for systems engineering. That goal will be pursued through a sequence of connected parts by following the thread from early developments of systems ideas into system science and systems thinking and from there into a scientifically based systems engineering process, that is, one that stands up to refutation [1]. [1]
[1]A scientific theory that lends itself to prediction, Karl Popper declared, can be proven false if that prediction proves false. Falsifiability is the touchstone that distinguishes science from nonscience.
The Western world as we see it today has been greatly influenced by the Industrial Revolution. The European Renaissance inspired that revolution, partly through the work of Ren Descartes, the French philosopher of cogito ergo sum fame. His name is enshrined in Cartesian reductionism; his philosophy is that of breaking down big things into ever-smaller, and hence more understandable, pieces before assembly or reassembly into something larger. Cartesian reductionism is alive and well today in...
