Introduction

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a definite trend away from the casuistic scientific thinking which has dominated the scientific world, at least in the field of medicobiological research. Now, in the last decade of this century, scientists are returning to a conceptual way of thinking that characterized the beginning of this century, namely organismal thinking. The holistic concept is not a new one; it was rekindled by a small group of scientists who, in the previous two decades, have begun to warn against too great an emphasis being placed on a molecular casuistic approach as the final pursuit to science (see Duncker 1983). These thinkers were perhaps instrumental in helping to turn the tide, to instruct and encourage fellow researchers to extend their findings from the molecular and to the organismal (see Duncker 1983, 1992a,b; Duncker and Kreite 1987).