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reductionism Definition

re·duc·tion·ism (-iz′əm)

noun

any method or theory of reducing data, processes, or statements to seeming equivalents that are less complex or developed: usually a disparaging term

reductionism Related Forms
re·duc·tion·ist noun, adjective re·duc′·tion·is·tic adjective
reductionism Usage Examples

Converse of object

  • reject: We must reject the reductionism that gives priority to molecules over cells and cells over organisms and organisms over populations.
  • call: The danger we are trying to avoid here is called reductionism.
  • discuss: In 1992, John Cornwell at Cambridge UK, convened a group of well-known scientists and philosophers to discuss reductionism.
  • include: We should also include experimental reductionism, the use of controlled laboratory studies to gain understanding of similar behaviors in the natural environment.
  • use: A starting point might be to use the reductionism inherent in medicine as per Table 2.
  • have: Grow lettuce in styrofoam, and you have reductionism.

Noun used with modifier

  • class: Needless to say, it wasn't always a stance destined to make friends and influence people, and tended toward class reductionism.
  • machine: The cognitive approach uses the principle of machine reductionism.

Adjective modifier

  • biological: However you seem to be unwilling to let go of biological reductionism.
  • scientific: To do magick will change a person; they will view the world through eyes that see beyond the crushing dullness of scientific reductionism.
  • economic: They come down to the oldest charge in the book: economic reductionism.
  • such: Such economic reductionism can, of course, explain neither the collapse of Yugoslavia nor the outbreak of war.
  • psychological: Could there be an Abraham and Isaac episode in our era of psychological reductionism and media over-exposure?
  • methodological: He agrees that what he calls methodological reductionism is necessary for science, and he has no objections to it.

Preposition: in

  • science: Why are even scientists, involved in the supposed heinous practice, joining in the denigration of reductionism in science?
  • ecology: Thus any defense of reductionism in ecology based on IBMs must be very limited.