The term reductionist is sometimes used to describe the analytical way of looking at the world around us. Do you think this term is applicable to the scientific study of heredity? Explain why.
Answers
Answer:
Explanation:
Reductionism encompasses a set of ontological, epistemological, and methodological claims about the relations between different scientific domains. The basic question of reduction is whether the properties, concepts, explanations, or methods from one scientific domain (typically at higher levels of organization) can be deduced from or explained by the properties, concepts, explanations, or methods from another domain of science (typically at lower levels of organization). Reduction is germane to a variety of issues in philosophy of science, including the structure of scientific theories, the relations between scientific disciplines, the nature of explanation, the diversity of methodology, and notions of theoretical progress, as well as to numerous topics in metaphysics and philosophy of mind, such as emergence, mereology, and supervenience.
In philosophy of biology, debates about reduction have focused on the question of whether and in what sense classical genetics can be reduced to molecular biology. Although other strands of discussion have been present (e.g., whether evolutionary theory is inherently anti-reductionist because of the principle of natural selection), philosophical debates increasingly address a wider array of domains (e.g., development, ecology, evolution, cell biology, and neuroscience), and include additional questions about the nature and status of interdisciplinarity, such as the integration of data or standards across biological fields. Questions about reduction in biology are pervasive throughout the history of philosophy and science. Many contemporary debates have historical analogues that reflect long-standing controversies about the legitimacy of reductionist research strategies and modes of explanation used by different life science subdisciplines.