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Reductionism
From ‘An Introduction to General Systems Thinking’, by Gerald Weinberg.
Reductionism — Getting Your Hands Around It.
… it is his chosen task to understand the simplifying assumptions of a science… those ‘objects of interest’ and ‘well-defined conditions’ that delimit its domain of application and magnify its power of prediction.
The concept is further explored in ‘Consilience The Unity of Knowledge’, by Edward O. Wilson:
Here is how reductionism works most of the time, as it might appear in a user’s manual. Let your mind travel around the system. Pose an interesting question about it. Break the question down and visualize the elements and questions it implies.
Think out alternative conceivable answers. Phrase them so that a reasonable amount of evidence makes a clear-cut choice possible. If too many conceptual difficulties are encountered, back off. Search for another question. When you finally hit a soft spot, search for the model system — say a controlled emission in particle physics or a fast breeding organism in genetics — on which decisive experiments can be most easily conducted.
Become thoroughly familiar with the system; love the details. Design the experiment, so that no matter what the result, the answer to the question will be convincing. Use the result to press on to new questions, new systems.
