Abstract
Reductionism, if accepted, is usually accepted on faith and without logical evidence or sound reasons. For example, overblown claims in the philosophical literature for the reducibility of thermodynamics or chemistry to Hamiltonian mechanics or quantum mechanics are not justified by present scientific knowledge1-5. Indeed, I do not know of a single scientifically interesting example of a relation between theories which fits any of the schemes for theory reductions proposed by the philosophers of science, and which fulfills the legitimate requirements of rigor of scientists.
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Primas, H. (1991). Reductionism: Palaver Without Precedent. In: Agazzi, E. (eds) The Problem of Reductionism in Science. Episteme, vol 18. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3492-7_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3492-7_9
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