2c: Wholes or parts?

Lesson 1: Student Worksheet 1

Wholes or parts?

In the table below are some areas of study and some of the objects studied. Fill in the gaps by drawing on the following words to match the areas of study to the objects studied:

mind, atom, anthropology, ecology, nervous system, genetics, society, chemistry, universe, botany, animal.

zoology
physics
eco-system
sociology
neurology
plants
gene
psychology
molecule
cosmology
mankind

Table 1

In Table 1, the areas of study in the left hand column are not arranged in any particular order. Using Student Worksheet 2: Wholes or parts? list the subjects in some different orders. Try listing them, for example, in order of the size of the object studied, in order of the complexity of the object studied and in order of importance of the area of study. Do any of these lists produce the same order?

Reductionism

When scientists try to understand very complicated things, they tend to start by looking at the pieces from which they are made (the parts inside the whole). The idea is that if they can understand how the parts work, then the complicated whole is nothing more than the parts put back together. This process is called reductionism – reducing the whole to the sum of the parts.

Some definitions of reductionism:

“The behaviour of a system is determined by the behaviour of its smallest parts.”

Ian Barbour

“Reductionism… hold(s), very roughly, that the nature of complex things can always be reduced to (explained by) simpler or more fundamental things”

The Wikipedia free on-line encyclopedia:

Can you think of any examples in the science that you have studied where reductionism has been applied?

Reductionism as a method for doing science has been very successful, but it does rely on an assumption – that nothing is lost when the whole is reduced to the parts. So far in science this assumption has been justified by the success that the policy brings. But, like all assumptions it must be remembered and questioned.

Reducing subjects

“The ultimate aim of the modern movement in biology is in fact to explain all biology in terms of physics and chemistry”

F Crick

“Anything can be reduced to simple, obvious mechanical interactions. The cell is a machine. The animal is a machine. Man is a machine”

J Monod

The success of science using reductionist methods has led some people to propose that areas of study are also, in a way, wholes that can be reduced to parts.

As a simple example, consider the study of gases, which was an interesting part of physics in the 1700s. After some work, physicists found out that gases could be described in terms of pressure, volume, mass and temperature. Some while later, further work showed that gases were made of tiny molecules bouncing around and that when these molecules hit the wall of the box containing the gas, the force produced what had been measured as pressure.

The atoms move rapidly striking the walls

So, in this example the high level concept of pressure had been explained and reduced to lower level concepts – molecules and forces.

Questions

1What do you think is meant by high level and low level in the paragraph above?

Look again at the list of areas of study that you made before.

2Which ones do you think could be reduced to others?

3If reduction is possible, does it depend on the size of the object studied or its complexity?

The subjects/areas of study that we have considered so far have, broadly, been sciences. A very committed reductionist would suggest that all subjects can in the end be reduced to science and that eventually everything is just particles in motion being acted on by forces. This goes a lot further than the simple reductionist method as a way of doing science. It has become a philosophy about the whole of knowledge (technically the philosophy of knowledge is called epistemology).

There is a great deal riding on this. If it is true that all high-level concepts can be reduced to particles and forces, then the other claim, which is often made at the same time, that science is the only true type of knowledge, is considerably strengthened. These arguments are often tied to a form of materialism and ultimately a militant atheism.

Science and Religion in Schools – 2c: Wholes or parts?