Reductionism - Alternatives To Reductionism

Alternatives To Reductionism

In recent years, the development of systems thinking has provided methods for tackling issues in a holistic rather than a reductionist way, and many scientists approach their work in a holistic paradigm. When the terms are used in a scientific context, holism and reductionism refer primarily to what sorts of models or theories offer valid explanations of the natural world; the scientific method of falsifying hypotheses, checking empirical data against theory, is largely unchanged, but the approach guides which theories are considered. The conflict between reductionism and holism in science is not universal—it usually centers on whether or not a holistic or reductionist approach is appropriate in the context of studying a specific system or phenomenon.

In many cases (such as the kinetic theory of gases), given a good understanding of the components of the system, one can predict all the important properties of the system as a whole. In other cases, trying to do this leads to a fallacy of composition. In those systems, emergent properties of the system are almost impossible to predict from knowledge of the parts of the system. Complexity theory studies such systems.

Alfred North Whitehead set his metaphysical thinking in opposition to reductionism. He refers to this as the 'fallacy of the misplaced concreteness'. His scheme set out to frame a rational, general understanding of things, that was derived from our reality.

The reductionist strategy or any method of simplification in scientific disciplines risks overlooking or negating awareness that already exists. Chaos theory, the concept of entropy in study of chemistry, and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in particle physics, all indicate that knowledge and cognition of the world becomes more complex as the level of awareness of it increases.

Scientists who use reductionist methods often take an approach that relies on contradicting previous contributions in their own context to science in order to validate a new theory, when sometimes there is no need to disprove existing theories in order to provide new insight. Proving a theory to be invalid and proving a new assumption to be true must both take place on their own merits. Scientific theories that are half-valid and half-invalid can be entirely brushed aside with reductionism, whereas with a holistic paradigm such as additivism, one can add the half-valid parts to updated assumptions. A reductionist would be less likely to view currently invalid theories as valid contributions in the context in which they were observed, utilized and presented, whereas a complexity theorist would be more likely to.

Sven Erik Jorgensen, an ecologist, lays out both theoretical and practical arguments for a holistic approach in certain areas of science, especially ecology. He argues that many systems are so complex that it will not ever be possible to describe all their details. Drawing an analogy to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in physics, he argues that many interesting and relevant ecological phenomena cannot be replicated in laboratory conditions, and thus cannot be measured or observed without influencing and changing the system in some way. He also points to the importance of interconnectedness in biological systems. His viewpoint is that science can only progress by outlining what questions are unanswerable and by using models that do not attempt to explain everything in terms of smaller hierarchical levels of organization, but instead model them on the scale of the system itself, taking into account some (but not all) factors from levels both higher and lower in the hierarchy.