EDWARD'S LECTURE NOTES:
More notes at http://tanguay.info/learntracker
C O U R S E 
Emergence of Life
Bruce W. Fouke, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
https://www.coursera.org/course/emergenceoflife
C O U R S E   L E C T U R E 
Reductionism vs. Holism
Notes taken on July 27, 2014 by Edward Tanguay
scientific approach of the world
1. at some level, no matter how complex our object of study gets, any system is understandable
2. scientific ideas are subject to change
scientific theories can stand the test of time in terms of being evaluated, but they can always be replaced by or accompanied by other testable theories
3. scientific knowledge is durable
the more a theory is tested and used in various contexts, the more it can be counted on as durable in and beyond those contexts
4. there are always questions open
5. science has to be reproducible and predictable
6. science is a blend of logic and imagination
critical thinking is necessary for reliability of theories
creative thinking is necessary to move past thinking blocks or to create new ways of approaching a problem when a previous paradigm is inadequate
7. scientists try to identify and avoid bias
science is done by humans who get tired and frustrated, and who have ulterior motives for putting forth theories, all of this needs to be taken into account when evaluating and testing scientific theories
two extremes of the scientific approach
reductionism
we understand complex systems by first understanding each of its parts and completely understanding the causality between all of these parts
e.g. to find the problem with your car, a reductionist mechanic would remove every single piece and examine each one
holism
we have to understand complex systems as wholes and do not need to concern ourselves with how they are made up
e.g. to find the problem with your car, a holist mechanic would suggest remedies such as to put better fuel in it or drive more slowly, he would not concern himself with the parts of the car
applied science uses a combination of both approaches
we understand a complex system as a whole in order to create tests which tend to localize the problem to one of the parts, then we examine those parts, make changes to them, reconnect them to the system, then run tests on the whole system again