C West Churchman - Collected Quotes

"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, "Costs, Utilities, and Values", 1956)

"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, "Introduction to Operations Research", 1957)

"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, "Managerial acceptance of scientific recommendations", California Management Review Vol 7, 1964)

"A systems approach begins when first you see the world through the eyes of another." (C West Churchman, "The Systems Approach", 1968) 

"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, "The Systems Approach", 1968)

"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, "Challenge to Reason", 1968)

"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, "The Systems Approach", 1968) 

"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, "The Systems Approach", 1968)

"The systems approach to problems does not mean that the most generally formulated problem must be solved in one research project. However desirable this may be, it is seldom possible to realize it in practice. In practice, parts of the total problem are usually solved in sequence. In many cases the total problem cannot be formulated in advance but the solution of one phase of it helps define the next phase." (C West Churchman, "The Systems Approach", 1968)

"We are always obliged to think about the larger system. If we fail to do this, then our thinking becomes fallacious." (C West Churchman, "The Systems Approach", 1968)

"When one is considering systems it's always wise to raise questions about the most obvious and simple assumptions." (C West Churchman, "The Systems Approach", 1968)

"Operations research (OR) is the securing of improvement in social systems by means of scientific method." (C West Churchman, "Operations research as a profession", 1970)

"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, "Introduction to Operations Research", 1957)

"The systems approach goes on to discovering that every world-view is terribly restricted." (C West Churchman, 1970)

"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, "The Design of Inquiring Systems", 1971)

"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, "The Design of Inquiring Systems", 1971)

"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, "The Design of Inquiring Systems", 1971)

"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 et al, "Thinking for Decisions Deduction Quantitative Methods", 1975)