I think talking about cognitive biases in the context of building and understanding complicated/complex systems is the point of 'systems thinking'. Just having a name for that kind of exercise is useful. Just like everything else, it gets taken too far, or stretched into a flimsy product to be sold to the managerial class.
Except "systems thinking" doesn't do anything. It doesn't introduce anything new. All it's doing is introducing false epistemology and complicated nomenclature for concepts that are obvious.
If anything this kind of writing introduces new biases where ones previously didn't exist.
> All it's doing is introducing false epistemology and complicated nomenclature for concepts that are obvious.
How else are pseudo-intellectuals supposed to make their money these days? /s
I enjoyed the Meadows book about it and although I didn't read it with a critical eye, I didn't find it misleading or obfuscatory. It's written in plain language.
If anything, it's got quite an ecological feel to it (and boils down to something like "testing inputs to a system willy-nilly is really stupid without a broad idea of the interactions between things").
