ABSTRACT
The book “System Thinking: The New Paradigm of Science” will have profound implications for those who wish to understand Brazilian public policies for Medical Education, since such a paradigm extends its tentacles into almost every area of everyday life, influencing our ways of being in the world. The two chapters of Part I present the notions of Paradigm and Epistemology, widely used concepts and often with conflicting meanings and highlight outstanding moments in the development of the conception of scientific knowledge. The importance of the emergence of science for the world evolution and the origin of phenomena as present and controversial today as the separation between science and philosophy and between body and mind can be perceived. The three chapters of Part II present, respectively: the outline of the traditional paradigm of science; the dimensions of the emerging paradigm of contemporary science; and System Thinking as the new paradigm of science. Chapter 3 presents classical and traditional science from the perspective of three fundamental assumptions: simplicity, stability and objectivity; and a reference framework with its own terms helps the readers to situate themselves in relation to this science paradigm and their way to see the world. Chapter 4 presents the emerging paradigm from the mirror-assumptions of those presented earlier: complexity overlaps simplicity; instability, the stability; and intersubjectivity, the objectivity. Another reference framework with the terms that fit the three assumptions, used to explain the new paradigm, brings the readers closer to terms that are more relevant to the education needed for the 21st Century. Chapter 5 presents the new-paradigmatic scientist and defends System Thinking as the new paradigm of science. It is here that readers can acquire the argument they lacked to be able to appropriate this new paradigm, definitively transforming their epistemological posture in the face of life and work questions. A final chapter in Part III outlines the origins of theoretical approaches to systems and leads the reader to wander between the General Theory of Systems and Cybernetics; Constructivism and Si-Cybernetics; the Theory of Autopoiesis and the Biology of Knowing; the New General Theory of Systems and the General Theory of Autonomous Systems. Although the paradigm of traditional science is still hegemonic, there is evidence that we are experiencing a paradigm shift. The digital revolution has changed the way people think and learn; this requires of teachers and health professionals trained in the last century a widening of their gaze towards an object that emerges from the distinction of the observer(s), when interacting with other objects and with the environment where they live. This book may be a start for those who wish to enter academia, or it may be an advent for those who have started their reflections on their roles, as teachers or students, at the present time; it should be read and discussed by all those involved in the training of professionals for the 21st Century.