I posted it before I had realized you had a background in chaos theory. It's being discussed on HN right now, so it seemed timely and relevant.

That said, the paper still touches on the same problems with reductionism and simplification of complex systems.

To quote from the paper:

We draw on the ‘reductive tendency’, a process through which individuals simplify complex systems into cognitively manageable representations. While simplified representations offer benefits, such as quicker decision-making, such representations are often inaccurate as they overlook the complexities of the problem at hand.

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Compounding these factors is the nonlinear nature of wicked problems, where “cause and effect relationships are either unknown or highly uncertain.

Second, wicked problems present potential entrepreneurs with “radical” uncertainty. Because of their
specifically nonlinear and interrelated complexity, wicked problems “have no closed form definition”

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Multiple reasons have been offered as to why reduction is so common. For example, the ability to reason about complexity requires a range of components to be prioritized to understand how they relate within a system. As this is difficult, individuals adopt understandings that are simpler in nature, thereby reducing the perceived complexity of a problem (Feltovich, Spiro, and Coulson, 1993). Others suggest that the tendency is a habitual carry-over from the rudimentary and routinized way that beginners are introduced to a concept (Gibson and Spelke, 1983). For many individuals, simpler conceptual forms are often employed to introduce a
topic (Feltovich et al., 1989). This may, however, set up path-dependent learning that relies on reduction as a crutch (Feltovich et al., 1986). Another argument arises from motivational psychology and the finding that people prefer a middle level of complexity in their lives; concepts that are too simple are deemed boring, while concepts that are too complex are off-putting and do not attract engagement (Berlyne, 1971).

Research has identified 11 dimensions or manifestations of the reductive tendency (Feltovich et al., 2004; Hmelo-Silver and Pfeffer, 2004). We organize these into three categories.

The first pertains to simplifying processes and entails four dimensions: continuous processes are simplified into ones with discrete steps; interactive processes that depend on each other are simplified to be
independent and separated; concurrent processes are simplified to be sequential; and nonlinear explanatory relationships are simplified into linear ones.

The second category pertains to perspective restrictions. This category describes situations in which individuals minimize the importance of, or ignore altogether, facets or manifestations of phenomena. This category includes three dimensions whereby individuals simplify: concepts necessitating multiple representations to single ones; phenomena with numerous and ambiguous causal mechanisms to ones with simple and clear causal agents, and; concepts with covert or abstract elements to surface-level, apparent ones.

The third category contains four dimensions that pertain to forming standardized representations of phenomena. It captures situations in which individuals simplify: concepts necessitating dynamic understanding of inputs into static ones; heterogeneous schemes or facets of a phenomena into uniform or highly similar; context-sensitive phenomena into universal ones; and regularity to replace situations that are characterized by asymmetric, inconsistent, or complex patterns

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^ This is closely matches the major points I'm whining about.