Chapter 2: Assumptions Through a Complexity Lens¹

We view assumptions as networks, thus allowing them to be understood as complex systems. Relevant characteristics of complex systems for understanding how assumptions affect evaluation are emergence, sensitive dependence, attractors, and a set of behaviors drawn from the field of Ecology. Five evaluation scenarios are considered that involve assumption-based complex system implications for evaluation: (1) emergence by causal chains, (2) attractors by resistance to change, (3) sensitive dependence by conditional relationships in evaluation models, (4) networked vs. linear models of assumption order, and (5) assumptions in an ecological framework. The ecological framework draws on evolutionary change, extinction and birth rates, mutation, and fitness landscape. This complex system framework reveals novel understanding of how relationships among assumptions can affect evaluation.