Notes

Reductionism versus Systems Thinking
Modern science has made great progress through the adoption of reductionism, an approach that breaks down a complex structure or process into its fundamental elements. This method of examining components individually reveals how each one contributes to the overall system. In genetics, for example, isolating and analyzing individual DNA molecules has enhanced scientists’ understanding of inheritance and even enabled them to identify specific genes that are associated with particular traits. Further, by separating constituent elements from the complex environments in which they exist, as in the case of testing drugs on tissue samples instead of injecting them into the human body, reductionism allows scientists to eliminate the influence of uncontrolled elements or potential contamination sources that can complicate the process of determining cause and effect.
Reductionism has become so dominant in the field of genetics that many researchers have come to emphasize genes as the fundamental unit of the human “system.” Some reductionists even argue that human beings are merely vehicles in which genes reside, manipulating our behavior and regulating every aspect of our existence. On the other hand, biologist Denis Noble of the University of Oxford argues that “privileging any one level in biological systems cannot be justified.” Biological systems can be approached from molecular, cellular, and various other perspectives. The interplay between various components and levels is not always apparent, yet it can significantly affect the overall functioning of the system, as in the case of human consciousness arising as an outcome of chemical and biological processes in the nervous system. Analyzing the components of a system in isolation at a particular time will therefore, according to Noble, produce data that are only accurate at that moment and may not reflect the system in its entirety.

According to the author of the passage, what is one of the benefits of reductionism?
(1) It makes it possible for scientists to be certain that external factors have not had an influence on the outcome of an experiment.
(2) It enables scientists to split certain DNA molecules and alter their structure, thereby allowing them to change the way some genes function.
(3) By using drugs to help identify the functions of certain genes, scientists can improve their understanding of the process of tissue formation.
(4) By reproducing systems in their entirety on a much smaller scale, scientists can more easily manipulate their components to see how each one works.