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In Praise of Reductionism

Lewis Wolpert

Science is the best way to understand the world and solve the problems of how and why things behave as they do. The success of science is dependent on a reductionist approach - that is, explaining phenomena at one level in terms of the behaviour of elements at a more fundamental level of organisation. Cells are to be understood in terms of the behaviour of molecules and development in terms of cells. Technology is different from science and can, in principle, progress with little or no understanding, just imaginative trial and error.

Professor Lewis Wolpert is Professor of Biology as Applied to Medicine in the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology of University College, London. His research interests are in the mechanisms involved in the development of the embryo. He was originally trained as a civil engineer in South Africa, but changed to research in cell biology at King's College, London, in 1955. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1980 and awarded the CBE in 1990. He has presented science on both radio and TV and is currently Chairman of the Committee for the Public Understanding of Science. His most recent book is The Unnatural Nature of Science (Feber) and he writes a column in The Independent on Sunday. Passionate Minds (with Alison Richards), interviews with scientists, was published by Oxford University Press in mid-1997, while Principles of Development (Current Biology) has just appeared.