18 October 2023

On Problem Solving XIII: Technologies

"I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail." (Abraham H Maslow, "Toward a Psychology of Being", 1962)

"It is a commonplace of modern technology that there is a high measure of certainty that problems have solutions before there is knowledge of how they are to be solved." (John K Galbraith, "The New Industrial State", 1967)

"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, "The Systems Approach", 1968)

"Sometimes, where a complex problem can be illuminated by many tools, one can be forgiven for applying the one he knows best." (Robert E Machol, "Principles of Operations Research", 1975)

"The true line is not between hard natural science and soft social sciences, but between precise science limited to highly abstract and simple phenomena in the laboratory and inexact science and technology dealing with complex problems in the real world." (Herbert A Simon, "Models of My Life", 1991)

"Technology can relieve the symptoms of a problem without affecting the underlying causes. Faith in technology as the ultimate solution to all problems can thus divert our attention from the most fundamental problem - the problem of growth in a finite system - and prevent us from taking effective action to solve it." (Donnella H Meadows et al," The Limits to Growth: The 30 Year Update, 2004)

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