His research began over thirty years ago studying tumors as organisms holistically rather than their component chemical properties. He knew the more conventional approach in the sciences is reductionist, as in biochemistry and physical chemistry - sometimes defended as applying an Occams Razor simplification. Several biologists like Gunther Stent and James Danielli (Danielli, 1982) had long questioned this, arguing that the properties of organisms are not summations of their chemical components but rather can best be understood holistically (Elsasser, 1982;1986). Gunther Stent calls his approach neo-Kantian and neo-hermeneutic. Patrick Heelans philosophy of science makes the same argument (Heelan, 1983). A similar point was made in the post-modern physics of John A. Wheelers participant-observer (Wheeler, J. 1994) universe, extended by David Bohm into the explicate/implicate order. (Bohm, 1995)