Abstract
As the wickedness of public challenges increases, strategies for policy development involve some effort to cordon off complexity to the point where action can be taken. There are multiple ways that this can be done, and all have limitations. I describe two common ways that this can happen, decomplexification and simplification. Decomplexification is based in science and uses knowledge to place boundaries around a problem and make it manageable, with the result often being a siloing of efforts in different disciplines with the potential for myopia and groupthink. Simplification is based on narratives and causal stories that are appealing in the political environment but are often foolish or malignant. In both cases, the process is reinforced because people want to belong to groups with shared identities, and they signal to one another this urge to belong. And in either case, the result can be a policy approach that is nonsensical.
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