The alternative to reductionist and genocentric thinking is called wholism, said Dr Scott Gilbert, a developmental biologist at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. That something includes special properties that emerge from the interacting parts that, in turn, affect the whole. Proponents of reductionism are unabashed by such criticism. Well, it's going to be jolly hard. But I don't think we need a new science to do it.
Reductionism continues to be amazingly productive.
We don't have all the details but the principles are absolutely clear. But I like to treat these problems like income taxes. While you cannot evade them, there are legal means to avoid them. This is possible, he went on, by using advanced research tools that include computers to find patterns among genes, and fluorescent dyes to light up those genes that are active in any given cell, and comparing the genes of different animals to see how genetic information was swapped in the course of evolution. Scientists are learning, for example, that the genes of cows, dogs, rats, people and all other mammals are extremely similar.