Eye2theLongRun

The famed biologist E.O. Wilson recently died aged 92. Amongst the Twitter posts noting this I read this quote of his: “The love of complexity without reductionism makes art; the love of complexity with reductionism makes science.”

A first reaction was mental rehearsal of all the arguments purporting to demonstrate that reductionism involves simplistic analysis of complexity such that essential elements of whatever is in question are either missed altogether, or understated, or distorted or become, at least, severely underrepresented. The opposite end of the argument typically sees art as involving romantic waffle bearing little resemblance to empirical observation, sloppy concepts, unmeasured dimensions, unworkable descriptions, and at least unacceptably loose thinking. The midpoint might be thought of as involving all the cowardice of no mans land with an accompanying lack of progress in any direction.

A bit of thought suggests that the statement is worth digging around in for a bit – not least because Wilson was one of the worlds serious thinkers and astute observers, his statement involves no judgment and is likely to have been made after some form of due consideration. Surely there are insights here?