Discussion meeting “The virtues and limits of reductionism”

This meeting is an experiment, an attempt to have a discussion about philosophical aspects of complex systems. We will talk about the text "Newtonianism, reductionism and the art of congressional testimony”  by particle physicist and Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg, and the reply “The limits of reductionism” by evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr, as well as Weinberg’s response to Mayr. We attach a PDF.

The experiment will work best if everyone has read this material (it takes ~2 hours to do this). We don’t plan to have a presentation summarising the text. Instead we will go through the material together, and try to understand the different types of reductionism mentioned by Weinberg and Mayr, and the positions the two authors take on the virtues and limits of reductionism. Hopefully, this will lead to some lively and informed discussion.

Facilitator: Tobias Galla

References:

S. Weinberg, Newtonianism, reductionism and the art of congressional testimony, Nature 330, 433-437 (1987)

E. Mayr, The limits of reductionism”, Nature 331, 475 (1988)

S. Weinberg, reply to Mayr, Nature 331, 475-476 (1988)

Also available in this link: https://cloud.ifisc.uib-csic.es/nextcloud/index.php/s/8C5AY9NLbWgtBAw