Back to the future: A critique of Demetis and Lee's “Crafting theory to satisfy the requirements of systems science”

•Critique of the paper by Demetis and Lee on systems science•Presents a wider view of systems science•Presents guidelines for crafting theory in line with systems thinking

Demetis and Lee's paper outlines criteria for constructing theory in accordance with systems science. This is a laudable aim but in this comment I suggest that their view of systems thinking is both narrow and somewhat dated. Demetis and Lee equate systems science with only one aspect of it - General Systems Thinking (GST) - and they discuss in detail only one theorist - Niklas Luhmann. I draw attention to a range of other systems approaches including system dynamics, soft systems methodology, complexity theory, critical systems thinking, critical realism and multimethodology. I conclude with tentative guidelines of my own.