Understanding Complexity in Systems: A Beginner's Guide

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Correction history

Every accepted correction to this page is recorded with the exact change, so readers can see how the page improved over time.

1. 29 July 2026 · corrected by Emir Baycan

   Corrected 5 fabricated citations attaching invented precise statistics to real people, companies, and events: a fabricated 2002 Eli Lilly internal analysis and 2013 Drug Information Association presentation with invented Phase II failure-rate figures; a fabricated Federal University of Parana 2020 Transportation Research Record study on Curitiba's transit resilience with invented statistics; fabricated precision statistics (60 percent, 60-70 percent) attached to Didier Sornette's real dragon-king theory, whose actual crash-prediction track record is disputed rather than quantified; a fabricated 2003 SARS-specific Bar-Yam study with an invented statistic, when his real relevant work on differentiated epidemic response is from the COVID-19 era; and an imprecise/fabricated detail in the well-documented 2003 Northeast Blackout report (real figure is approximately 55 million affected, and the cascade collapsed within minutes, not over '52 events across 2 hours 11 minutes').

   Before

   Article cited specific studies, presentations, and statistics for real companies, researchers, and events that, on independent verification, do not exist or materially misrepresent the documented timeline/findings.

   After

   Removed the fabricated study citations and invented statistics while preserving the real underlying facts (Lilly's real adaptive-trial-design push, Curitiba's real transit design philosophy, Sornette's real precursor-signal research, Bar-Yam's real COVID-era policy analysis, and the blackout's real scale and cascading-failure mechanism).

   Why: Real researchers, companies, and events were used as anchors for invented studies, conference presentations, and statistics - the Barabasi-Albert 1999 Science paper and the P&G/Lafley/Huston-Sakkab 2006 HBR citation in the same article both verified as fully accurate.

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Full contribution timeline

1. Correction 29 July 2026

   Emir Baycan: Corrected 5 fabricated citations attaching invented precise statistics to real people, companies, and events: a fabricated 2002 Eli Lilly internal analysis and 2013 Drug Information Association presentation with invented Phase II failure-rate figures; a fabricated Federal University of Parana 2020 Transportation Research Record study on Curitiba's transit resilience with invented statistics; fabricated precision statistics (60 percent, 60-70 percent) attached to Didier Sornette's real dragon-king theory, whose actual crash-prediction track record is disputed rather than quantified; a fabricated 2003 SARS-specific Bar-Yam study with an invented statistic, when his real relevant work on differentiated epidemic response is from the COVID-19 era; and an imprecise/fabricated detail in the well-documented 2003 Northeast Blackout report (real figure is approximately 55 million affected, and the cascade collapsed within minutes, not over '52 events across 2 hours 11 minutes').

   Proof record →