Reductionism v Emergence

{Update: 3/10: title changed slightly for focus}

After reading "What if...?",
a friend wrote to me this morning:

I hope someday you'll write a piece that talks about
the differences between reductionistic sciences and systems sciences....

Well, as luck would have it, I've got a little time on my hands this week, & I want to develop this essay (with a bunch of others) for my course that begins Tuesday, March 10 called "How Nature Works" (see next post below; syllabus coming to a post called "How Nature Works" about the course & a book I'm beginning work on...).

Given that understanding "how nature works" cannot be accomplished by reductionism alone - reductionism is, as we say, necessary but not sufficient - this essay will be a fine place to begin.

So, I'm going to develop this explanation here over the next few days to weeks (of course it will evolve; just like life does). Eventually, I'll move a version of it over to the new Euglena Academy site. (We're re-designing it from the ground up; to be unveiled in March.)

Outline (to be developed)

• Reductionism: definition
• Reductionism: from Democritus to Descartes
• What we've learned from a reductionist approach
• Reductionism: necessary but not sufficient
  
• Emergence as the counterweight to reductionism
• Emergent properties "disappear" on dissection
  
• A marriage of reductionism & emergence