Talk:DSRP

Is it a scientific theory? What hypotheses does it have? Are these hypotheses falsifiable and testable? Are there experiments to test these hypotheses? What are results of these experiments? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.72.8.29 (talk) 00:46, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

DSRP does not seem to be an accepted theory as claimed in this article. Probably does not warrant a page on Wikipedia as it has seen hardly any recognition by others outside of the theory's author. Please consider deletion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brillema (talk • contribs) 22:09, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

DSRP Theory is widely accepted in the field of systems thinking and written about in refereed publications. It is also the subject of the Routledge Handbook of Systems Thinking (2018) and described by world-renowned systems thinking scholars as the fourth wave of systems thinking. It was the central theme of a 2017 conference at Cornell University which had attendance of over 700 people and it has received millions of dollars in government funding for research. The claims made as to the deletion of this page are likely being made by those uninformed of the systems thinking field as a discipline or of modern systems thinking practice or by practitioners who support competing theories of systems thinking. 67.241.65.130 (talk) 12:42, 18 January 2017 (UTC)


 * The previous comment is full of rhetoric that sounds to me like unsupported exaggeration ("world-renowned"! "THE fourth wave"! "millions of dollars in government funding"!). Citation needed, as we say on Wikipedia. Biogeographist (talk) 14:15, 18 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Re Routledge Handbook of Systems Thinking: note that Cabrera is a co-editor, also therefore has some character of being primary source. (It's also not an actual source yet,) Humanengr (talk) 19:33, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

This page should not be deleted
The desire to delete this important page is motivated by an uninformed difference of opinion, not a matter of facts which are all independently verifiable.

See USDA funded program and there are reportedly other grants that proceed this one according to Cabrera's CV. Gerald Midgley is literally "world renowned" in the systems thinking field and the author of the most complete scholarly [4 volume set- Sage ] work on systems thinking yet written in the field (not an exaggeration). He was also President of ISSS and is a Professor of Systems Thinking at Hull. The attendance at the Cornell conference is publicly available. DSRP has been highlighted in two independent special issues (EPP and CPR ) and published in other peer reviewed journals and written about by authors other than the creator including important scholars in the field (see special issue authorship in EPP where the article on DSRP is among the most downloaded in the journal's history ). Courses in DSRP are taught at Cornell University, USMA at West Point and part of courses in numerous other colleges. Routledge Handbook is confirmed by reports by posts from the editors on Facebook systems thinking groups and personal contact with the authors/co-editors. The "4th wave" vernacular as well as the previous "three waves" vernacular which the previous post claims is exaggerative is well known by scholars in the field and not the specific terminology of DSRP but attributed to it.

67.241.65.130 (talk) 15:44, 18 January 2017 (UTC)


 * All that one needs to do to stop a WP:PROD is to remove the template, and that ends it. Someone could nominate this article for deletion via WP:AFD, which would then require a debate over deletion, but no debate is required for WP:PROD—if you oppose it, just remove the template. For the record, I think that this topic is probably notable enough (by Wikipedia standards) that deletion is unwarranted, but I am skeptical that DSRP is as monumentally important as Derek Cabrera and 67.241.65.130 seem to think it is.


 * Gerald Midgley is indeed well-known in the systems thinking field, but I see no indication that he unequivocally shares Cabrera's view of the great supremacy of DSRP; and one man is certainly not equivalent to the pantheon of "world-renowned systems thinking scholars" touted as enthusiasts of DSRP by 67.241.65.130 above.


 * I don't see what is particularly noteworthy about an article being in the list of most downloaded articles from Evaluation and Program Planning in the last 90 days, but the article in question is cited over 200 times in Google Scholar, which is respectable enough, since the citations don't all appear to be scathing critiques (although perhaps some of them are).


 * A search for "DSRP"+"fourth wave" on Google Books and Google Scholar and a couple of large academic databases returns zero relevant results. I see no support for the claim that "world renowned" experts view DSRP "as the fourth wave of systems thinking".


 * Finally, please note that Facebook posts and personal communication are not reliable sources on Wikipedia. Wait until the Routledge Handbook of Systems Thinking is published, and then we will see what it says and how it is received. Biogeographist (talk) 17:15, 18 January 2017 (UTC)


 * [as indicated above] Re Routledge Handbook of Systems Thinking: note that Cabrera is a co-editor, also therefore has some character of being primary source. Humanengr (talk) 19:33, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

DSRP certainly merits a wikipedia entry
I will briefly make the argument that a DSRP wikipedia page is appropriate and necessary. There is increasing attention to systems thinking among practitioners in the field and "outsiders" who have heard of the promise of systems thinking approaches in a variety of domains. The theory/method has been written about extensively, and is the subject of a general volume (forthcoming from Routledge) on systems thinking, along with a companion Routledge book on DSRP as a new paradigm in systems thinking that demonstrates that pluralism of methods can coexist with universalism (underlying principles of the field)--see also Cabrera, D. & Cabrera, L. (2015) `` Systems Thinking Made Simple: New Hope for Solving Wicked Problems in a Complex World.`` Odyssean Press. Ithaca, NY. These books are not yet published, but I am an invited author on one of them. In terms of peer-reviewed articles, two recent examples are: (1) Cabrera, D., Cabrera, L. & Powers E. (2015) “A Unifying Theory of Systems Thinking with Psychosocial Applications.” Systems Research and Behavioral Science. DOI: 10.1002/sres.2351; and (2) Cabrera, L., & Cabrera, D. (2016) “Learning Systems Thinking at the Graduate Level: A Case Study in Applying Systems Thinking to Public Policy.” Special Issue consisting of 14 articles dedicated to Systems Thinking/DSRP. Cornell Policy Review. DSRP and its application was the subject of a day-long systems thinking conference at Cornell University that featured a speaker from West Point, a State Department speaker, a leading water expert from the California Water Institute, and several researchers at the graduate, post-doc, and professor level. An award-winning documentarian introduced her new documentary that follows the application of DSRP in education. For those interested in this particular topic, the Cabreras' book ``Thinking at Every Desk`` is published by Norton. A major initiative applying DSRP to water-related issues, ThinkWater, is funded by the US Department of Agriculture. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.17.23.65 (talk) 16:52, 18 January 2017 (UTC)


 * The publications and events that 24.17.23.65 mentioned in the preceding paragraph were written and organized by Derek Cabrera, the creator of DSRP. They are primary sources, not the "significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject" required by Wikipedia's notability guidelines. YouTube videos are generally not reliable sources on Wikipedia, and the videos mentioned above were posted by Cabrera Research Lab, so they are certainly not an independent secondary source. As I noted in my previous comment above, I think that other sources can probably be found that establish the topic's notability, but the publications and events that 24.17.23.65 mentioned above do not, by themselves, establish notability (by Wikipedia's standards). Biogeographist (talk) 20:00, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

In addition, just doing a quick check of literature reviews, I was able to locate several reviews that mention DSRP. Also, Cabrera's work has been cited many times in a variety of sources: articles, book chapters, and so on. Not sure what the quantity requirements are for notability though. Saguaromelee (talk) 18:12, 1 February 2017 (UTC)


 * At this point there is no need to prove notability because nobody has tagged the article with Template:Notability and the article is not nominated for deletion. 24.17.23.65 wrote the preceding paragraph when somebody had applied Template:PROD to the article, and it seems that 24.17.23.65 didn't realize that all one needs to do to contest a proposed deletion is to remove the PROD template; it's not necessary to prove notability (which 24.17.23.65 certainly didn't succeed in doing anyway). Biogeographist (talk) 13:01, 2 February 2017 (UTC)