Editing Holism in science (section)

== Overview ==

[[David Deutsch]] calls holism anti-reductionist and refers to the concept of thinking as the only legitimate way to think about science in as a series of emergent, or higher level phenomena. He argues that neither approach is purely correct.<ref name="Deutsch2011">{{cite book|author=David Deutsch|title=The Fabric of Reality|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z7uFxViR19oC|date=14 April 2011|publisher=Penguin Books Limited|isbn=978-0-14-196961-9}}</ref>

Two aspects of Holism are:

# The way of doing science, sometimes called "whole to parts", which focuses on observation of the specimen within its ecosystem first before breaking down to study any part of the specimen.<ref name="Winther pp. 397–427">{{cite journal | last=Winther | first=Rasmus Grønfeldt | title=Part-whole science | journal=Synthese | volume=178 | issue=3 | date=29 September 2009 | issn=0039-7857 | doi=10.1007/s11229-009-9647-0 | pages=397–427| s2cid=18372542 }}</ref>
# The idea that the scientist is not a passive observer of an external universe but rather a participant in the system.<ref name="Moreira-Munoz2011">{{cite book|author=Andres Moreira-Munoz|title=Plant Geography of Chile|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hmH11ybGdQEC&pg=PA283|date=19 January 2011|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|isbn=978-90-481-8748-5|page=283}}</ref>

Proponents claim that Holistic science is naturally suited to subjects such as ecology, biology, physics and the social sciences, where complex, non-linear interactions are the norm. These are systems where emergent properties arise at the level of the whole that cannot be predicted by focusing on the parts alone, which may make mainstream, reductionist science ill-equipped to provide understanding beyond a certain level. This principle of emergence in complex systems is often captured in the phrase ′the whole is greater than the sum of its parts′. Living organisms are an example: no knowledge of all the chemical and physical properties of matter can explain or predict the functioning of living organisms. The same happens in complex social human systems, where detailed understanding of individual behaviour cannot predict the behaviour of the group, which emerges at the level of the collective. The phenomenon of emergence may impose a theoretical limit on knowledge available through reductionist methodology, arguably making complex systems natural subjects for holistic approaches.<ref name="Harding2006">{{cite book|author=Stephan Harding|title=Animate Earth: Science, Intuition, and Gaia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dEnxfXVwZtUC|date=15 September 2006|publisher=Chelsea Green Publishing|isbn=978-1-60358-149-3}}</ref>

Science journalist [[John Horgan (American journalist)|John Horgan]] has expressed this view in the book ''The End of Science''. He wrote that a certain pervasive model within holistic science, [[self-organized criticality]], for example, "is not really a theory at all. Like [[punctuated equilibrium]], self-organized criticality is merely a description, one of many, of the random fluctuations, the noise, permeating nature." By the theorists' own admissions, he said, such a model "can generate neither specific predictions about nature nor meaningful insights. What good is it, then?"<ref name="Horgan2015">{{cite book|author=John Horgan|title=The End Of Science: Facing The Limits Of Knowledge In The Twilight Of The Scientific Age|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AQOCBgAAQBAJ|date=14 April 2015|publisher=Basic Books|isbn=978-0-465-05085-7|page=128}}</ref>

One of the reasons that holistic science attracts supporters is that it seems to offer a progressive, 'socio-ecological' view of the world, but [[Alan Marshall (New Zealand author)|Alan Marshall]]'s book ''The Unity of Nature'' offers evidence to the contrary; suggesting holism in science is not 'ecological' or 'socially-responsive' at all, but regressive and repressive.<ref name="Alan2002"/>