Re: Robert Rosen and reductionist approaches

[Judith Rosen <***>]

Hi John (M),

Not to worry; I wasn't feeling defensive in the slightest. I was making the
point that while it's true that my father spent a lot of time talking about
reductionism in negative terms, he wasn't advocating a complete renunciation
of reductionist approaches in science. It seems that many people have
assumed that he WAS, from reading some of his work, but that wasn't the case
at all. His argument was against using a reductionist paradigm as "the
rule": He said this ignores far too much reality for that paradigm to be as
useful as we need science to be when dealing with biological systems. The
reality it ignores is the organizational one, which is at the heart of his
definition of complexity.

Judith


> John M. wrote: I do not accuse RR with reductionism.
> In spite of  your last reply to me, MY paraphrasing of RR is not 'giving
> words in his mouth' ("he never said..."). And from all I so far
experienced,
> he WAS explaining his ideas as a professor, in a "teaching way",-- to make
> others understand and accept the new views he developed.  I am not.
> I am all for the successfulness of reductionist science-technology, the
> 'mechanistic' models we formed brought us down from the tree and out from
> the cave. I exercised it for ½ century myself. THINKING is different, with
> (in) new vistas, for better (new) understanding.  MR is a good bridge in
> between (I wish I knew what it is).