Frank Voehl writes:

"The  U.S. National Science Foundation adopted in 1997 a policy -- as part of a strategic plan developed in 1995 --that research proposals must articulate "Broader Impacts."  These include the following:

• How well does the activity advance discovery and understanding while promoting teaching, training and learning?
• How well does the proposed activity broaden the participation of underrepresented groups (e.g., gender, ethnicity, disability, geographic, etc.)?
• To what extent will it enhance the infrastructure for research and education, such as facilities, instrumentation, networks and partnerships?
• Will the results be disseminated broadly to enhance scientific and technological understanding?
• What may be the benefits of the proposed activity to society?

The NSF also supported the workshop chaired/co-chaired by Rob Kling. Can this info be worked into the book under discussion?

Kent Myers responds:

NSF, like NASA, is always under pressure to show "spin-offs" that have social value.  You first have to make the cut as science or technology.   The approach leaves science intact and hopes for the best.  Nothing wrong with that, it appears, if that's your starting point.

But let's start elsewhere, as a professional practitioner who wants to be of help on a public policy decision.  He runs a study on the options.  The study is publishable in a journal and is ignored by decision makers.  Flyvbjerg ran into this problem, and instead of dismissing the decision makers he thought about how he could be of service under a different sort of practical rationality, which he calls phronetic social science.  (Phronesis is reasoned judgment in situations, different from episteme, which is knowledge of causes and the normal aim of modern science.)  Systems practitioners are practical, and are resigned to not getting NSF grants and tenure because they don't obey the rules stemming from an epistemic social science, but it is not clear to me that they have embraced phronetic social science.  It's more like a stand-off, or a compromise.  We will do something useful and also do a little science on the side, or call what we do a preliminary study and never quite get around to the study. 

I would have expected Flyvbjerg to be ignored, but apparently some felt challenged by his argument and felt the need to crush him.  The link is to an article that summarizes the controversy.  http://flyvbjerg.plan.aau.dk/schramp.pdf   The writer is sympathetic to Flyvbjerg but seems to be arguing that the controversy doesn't have to be resolved, that diverse approaches and tolerance (more specifically `Perestroika') is a good state of tension to leave it in.  Perhaps that is where systems thinking has been.  But observe how long Perestroika in the Soviet Union lasted.  Epistemic social science may be essentially hegemonic, an all or nothing position. 

This tension isn't just played out in the academy.  Epistemic science, of a kind, has a foothold in organizations, and it is intolerant there as well.  Ralph Stacey argues that while rationalistic practices are de rigeur in organizations, they aren't actually rational in uncertain (turbulent) contexts.  He tells a good story that everyone has observed.  A decision is made and then financial scenarios are played out.  The scenarios have no effect on the decision, but they are needed for justification.  The real bases for the decision are either not discussed or are discussed informally and in secret.  Often they make a lot of sense (under principles of complex practice) but this reasoning can't stand up to rationalistic scrutiny and is thus driven underground.