“Anthropologists are interested in reconstructing the kinship system as it might have existed at the time of a proto-language. A kinship system can be regarded as composed of two correlated systems: a system of kinship terminology and a set of behaviors that are patterned in relation to the terminological system. We know of no way in which we can rigorously infer the kinds of behavior directly, but it is generally regarded as possible to reconstruct the terminology at least in part. If rigor can be introduced in the procedure of reconstructing kinship terminology, then a generalization of that rigorous procedure is lexical reconstruction.”

Isidore Dyen, ‎David F. Aberle (1974), Lexical Reconstruction: The Case of the Proto-Athapaskan Kinship System. p. 7

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David Aberle3

anthropologist 1918–2004

Donella Meadows (1941–2001) American environmental scientist, teacher, and writer

Page 2.
Thinking in Systems: A Primer (2008)

“Only if mathematical rigor is adhered to, can systems problems be dealt with effectively, and so it is that the systems engineer must, at least, develop an appreciation for mathematical rigor if not also considerable mathematical competence.”

A. Wayne Wymore (1927–2011) American mathematician

Source: A Mathematical Theory of Systems Engineering (1967), p. 3.

“We can only know in the nervous system what we have known in behavior first.”

Julian Jaynes book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

Introduction, p. 18
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1976)

“Synergy is the only word in our language that means behavior of whole systems unpredicted by the separately observed behaviors of any of the system's separate parts or any subassembly of the system's parts.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

1960s, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (1963)
Context: Synergy is the only word in our language that means behavior of whole systems unpredicted by the separately observed behaviors of any of the system's separate parts or any subassembly of the system's parts. There is nothing in the chemistry of a toenail that predicts the existence of a human being.

“General systems theory is a set of related definitions, assumptions, and propositions which deal with reality as an integrated hierarchy of organizations of matter and energy. General systems behavior is concerned with a special subset of all systems, the living ones.
Even more basic to this presentation than the concept of "system" are the concepts of "space," "time," "matter," "energy," and "information," because the living systems which I shall discuss exist in space and are made of matter and energy organized by information.”

James Grier Miller (1916–2002) biologist

Source: Living Systems: Basic Concepts (1969), p. 51; Opening paragraph

“Let us begin by observing that the word "system" is almost never used by itself; it is generally accompanied by an adjective or other modifier: physical system; biological system; social system; economic system; axiom system; religious system; and even "general" system. This usage suggests that, when confronted by a system of any kind, certain of its properties are to be subsumed under the adjective, and other properties are subsumed under the "system," while still others may depend essentially on both. The adjective describes what is special or particular; i. e., it refers to the specific "thinghood" of the system; the "system" describes those properties which are independent of this specific "thinghood."
This observation immediately suggests a close parallel between the concept of a system and the development of the mathematical concept of a set. Given any specific aggregate of things; e. g., five oranges, three sticks, five fingers, there are some properties of the aggregate which depend on the specific nature of the things of which the aggregate is composed. There are others which are totally independent of this and depend only on the "set-ness" of the aggregate. The most prominent of these is what we can call the cardinality of the aggregate…
It should now be clear that system hood is related to thinghood in much the same way as set-ness is related to thinghood. Likewise, what we generally call system properties are related to systemhood in the same way as cardinality is related to set-ness. But systemhood is different from both set-ness and from thinghood; it is an independent category.”

Robert Rosen (1934–1998) American theoretical biologist

Source: "Some comments on systems and system theory," (1986), p. 1-2 as quoted in George Klir (2001) Facets of Systems Science, p. 4

“Since it can be argued that both science and engineering are concerned with the study of real systems and their behavior, it follows that a general theory should be concerned with the study of general systems… It suffices for the present discussion to consider a general system as an abstract analogue or model of a class of real systems. General systems theory is then a theory of general models.”

Mihajlo D. Mesarovic (1928) Serbian academic

Mesarovic (1964) cited in: Shatrughna P. Sinha (1991) Instant encyclopaedia of geography. 1. Introduction to geography. Mittal Publications, p. 467

“In terms of language, we do know what a scientific theory or conceptual system must be: it is a thematic pattern of semantic relationships in a subject, one that is reconstructed again and again in nearly the same ways by members of a community.”

Jay Lemke (1946) American academic

Source: Talking Science: Language, Learning, and Values. 1990, p. 99