Houston, We’ve Had a Problem: When Do We Override Rules?

Response to ‘The Appropriation of Complexity Theory in Health Care’

“…We have published a number of subsequent papers and a book, all of which Paley chose to ignore, which offer a more sophisticated analysis of complex adaptive systems. 9–19 For example, in her opening keynote lecture to the 2009 World Family Doctors' Conference in Basel, Switzerland, Greenhalgh argued that what is widely referred to as ‘complexity theory' is little more than a general world view at a high level of abstraction; it needs to be refined, adapted and applied in different ways for different research questions. 16 Family medicine research typically involves the study of how individuals behave and relationships develop, contextualized in particular social, institutional and technological settings.…”