Too Early, Too Late, Now What?

The Social Systems Sciences program is a doctoral program at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. The program is associated with two research centers, the Busch Center and the Management and Behavioral Science Center. Students and faculty in the centers and the program use science and systems thinking to help resolve clients' problems. Many of the projects in the centers deal with the design and management of social systems. David Hawk holds a Ph.D. degree from this School. Except for Chapter 1, the contents remain what was submitted in early 1978. Five university-picked reviewers became concerned about the document: they wrote that "The document is easy to understand and clearly stated, but may not be right. It needs to contain more science and skepticism." A rephrased first chapter was thus drafted and resubmitted. It was written to embrace more complexity, and call for more research into the subject. The document was then reviewed by seven reviewers and accepted in 1979. The initial submission of Chapter 1 is included here, not the one pretending complexity. Titled "Regulation of Environmental Deterioration" the dean of the Wharton School was uncomfortable with this topic coming from his school. Parts of the dissertation never went to the University of Pennsylvania archives nor the University of Michigan dissertation abstracts. One of the four volumes is currently available in the University library.