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"Reductionist" is usually used as an insult. Many people engaged in intellectual pursuits believe that reductionism is not a useful approach to studying various

"Reductionist" is usually used as an insult. Many people engaged in intellectual pursuits believe that reductionism is not a useful approach to studying various topics. You may argue otherwise, but then you are on a slippery slope towards politics and culture wars.

js8 1y ago
I would not be so sure. There are many fields where reductionism was applied in practice and it yielded useful results, thanks to computers. Examples that come to mind: statistical modelling (reduction to nonparametric models), protein folding (reduction to quantum chemistry), climate/weather prediction (reduction to fluid physics), human language translation (reduction to neural networks). Reductionism is not that useful as a theory building tool, but reductionist approaches have a lot of practical value.
- gilleain 1y ago
  > protein folding (reduction to quantum chemistry), I am not sure in what sense folding simulations are reducable to quantum chemistry. There are interesting 'hybrid' approaches where some (limited) quantum calculations are done for a small part of the structure - usually the active site I suppose - and the rest is done using more standard molecular mechanics/molecular dynamics approaches. Perhaps things have progressed a lot since I worked in protein bioinformatics. As far as I know, even extremely short simulations at the quantum level were not possible for systems with more than a few atoms.
  - TheAncientGeek 1y ago
    That's a practical limitation. There's no barrier in principle to a complete reduction.
- jltsiren 1y ago
  I meant that the word "reductionist" is usually an accusation of ignorance. It's not something people doing reductionist work actually use.
  - nyeah 1y ago
    But that common use of the word is ignorant nonsense. So, yes, someone is wrong on the internet. So what?
    - jltsiren 1y ago
      The context here was a claim that reducibility is usually a goal of intellectual pursuits. Which is empirically false, as there are many academic fields with a negative view of reductionism.
nyeah 1y ago
'Reductionist' can be an insult. It can also be an uncontroversial observation, a useful approach, or a legitimate objection to that approach. If you're looking for insults, and declaring the whole conversation a "culture war" as soon as you think you found one, (a) you'll avoid plenty of assholes, but (b) in the end you will read whatever you want to read, not what the thoughtful people are actually writing.

js8 1y ago

I would not be so sure. There are many fields where reductionism was applied in practice and it yielded useful results, thanks to computers. Examples that come to mind: statistical modelling (reduction to nonparametric models), protein folding (reduction to quantum chemistry), climate/weather prediction (reduction to fluid physics), human language translation (reduction to neural networks). Reductionism is not that useful as a theory building tool, but reductionist approaches have a lot of practical value.

gilleain 1y ago
> protein folding (reduction to quantum chemistry), I am not sure in what sense folding simulations are reducable to quantum chemistry. There are interesting 'hybrid' approaches where some (limited) quantum calculations are done for a small part of the structure - usually the active site I suppose - and the rest is done using more standard molecular mechanics/molecular dynamics approaches. Perhaps things have progressed a lot since I worked in protein bioinformatics. As far as I know, even extremely short simulations at the quantum level were not possible for systems with more than a few atoms.
- TheAncientGeek 1y ago
  That's a practical limitation. There's no barrier in principle to a complete reduction.
jltsiren 1y ago
I meant that the word "reductionist" is usually an accusation of ignorance. It's not something people doing reductionist work actually use.
- nyeah 1y ago
  But that common use of the word is ignorant nonsense. So, yes, someone is wrong on the internet. So what?
  - jltsiren 1y ago
    The context here was a claim that reducibility is usually a goal of intellectual pursuits. Which is empirically false, as there are many academic fields with a negative view of reductionism.

nyeah 1y ago

'Reductionist' can be an insult. It can also be an uncontroversial observation, a useful approach, or a legitimate objection to that approach. If you're looking for insults, and declaring the whole conversation a "culture war" as soon as you think you found one, (a) you'll avoid plenty of assholes, but (b) in the end you will read whatever you want to read, not what the thoughtful people are actually writing.