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“Superimposed on the hierarchical framework of defined components of a cell there is another layer. This second layer is highly flexible and can take on an almost infinite variety of forms, like soft and responsive flesh on a bony skeleton. The deep question is whether this higher layer in the construction of cells is itself organized. Are there hierarchies, or at least rules, in the protein-modifying, RNA splicing, gene-regulating processes of a cell? If so, then we have a chance of understanding them. If not, we will never know exactly what a cell will do next. If the detailed chemistry of the cell is simply the outcome of a historical ragbag of ad hoc interactions, then it will be no more predictable than the weather.
I do not have an answer to this question. But two features of cells might be relevant. One is a sense of time, or causation - knowledge of the way that things in the real world follow in a certain sequence. The other is integrity, which enables a cell to distinguish between what belongs to itself and what belongs to the outside world.”
― Dennis Bray, Wetware: A Computer in Every Living Cell

“When questions arise of possible harmful effects of pesticides, the defenders of the products always try to narrow the scope of the inquiry to their most immediate, direct and measurable consequences and then downplay them, The critics of pesticides, on the other hand, urge that the ecosystem is strongly interconnected, highly variable and vulnerable. Thus debates around environmental impact become debates on the philosophy of nature: are things readily isolated or richly interacting? Is the average behavior of chemicals and organisms an adequate basis for decision making or must we be concerned with the unevenness of the world? Shall we "be realists" and stick to measurable costs and benefits, or shall we concern ourselves with all kinds of consequences of what we do? Gradually we see a confrontation of the world views of mechanistic reductionism and of dialectical materialism.”
― Richard Levins, The Dialectical Biologist

“Although these digital tools can improve the diagnostic process and offer clinicians a variety of state-of-the-art treatment options, most are based on a reductionist approach to health and disease. This paradigm takes a divide-and-conquer approach to medicine, "rooted in the assumption that complex problems are solvable by dividing them into smaller, simpler, and thus more tractable units." Although this methodology has led to important insights and practical implications in healthcare, it does have its limitations.

Reductionist thinking has led researchers and clinicians to search for one or two primary causes of each disease and design therapies that address those causes.... The limitation of this type of reasoning becomes obvious when one examines the impact of each of these diseases. There are many individuals who are exposed to HIV who do not develop the infection, many patients have blood glucose levels outside the normal range who never develop signs and symptoms of diabetes, and many patients with low thyroxine levels do not develop clinical hypothyroidism. These "anomalies" imply that there are cofactors involved in all these conditions, which when combined with the primary cause or causes bring about the clinical onset. Detecting these contributing factors requires the reductionist approach to be complemented by a systems biology approach, which assumes there are many interacting causes to each disease.”
― Paul Cerrato, Reinventing Clinical Decision Support: Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, and Diagnostic Reasoning

“The need of theory is supported by the eros of the philosopher. It is not the expression of his will to conquer nature. Therefore, the joys of contemplation are "immediate enjoyments," joys that belong intrinsically to contemplation, and they come without further setting of goals or justification to the one receptive to them. They are not tied to social use, neither dependent upon the opinion of others nor gained from the expectation of future glory. The love for the observation of nature, for the observation of the details of the structure in which nature becomes comprehensible, of the order in which nature is articulated, of the spectacle nature provides for one who takes an interest in its objects, who lets its forms, colors, and sounds affect him, this love accords with the love of oneself. Both discourage highfalutin plans to change the world by the transformation of nature. Both impose moderation on the philosopher. He will be especially adequate to his desire to "contribute" something "to this beautiful system" by his conceiving it as a "system" and as "beautiful." The contribution most his own is that he has the whole in view; that he sees things and beings within the horizon of the whole, that he investigates and orders them as parts, that he knows himself as a part and reflects on his relation to the whole or that he poses the question of the whole. But if he wants to keep the question of the whole in view, he may not lose himself. To conceive the "beautiful system," he must devote himself to it in detail and again return to himself. To be able to observe nature, he may not blend into it. Observation requires both proximity and distance.”
― Heinrich Meier, On the Happiness of the Philosophic Life: Reflections on Rousseau's Rêveries in Two Books

“Since the 19th century, medicine has focused on specific disease states by linking collections of signs and symptoms to single organs.... Systems biology and its offspring, sometimes called Network Medicine, takes a more wholistic approach, looking at all the diverse genetic, metabolic, and environmental factors that contribute to clinical disease. Equally important, it looks at the preclinical manifestations of pathology.

The current focus of medicine is much like the focus that an auto mechanic takes to repair a car. The diagnostic process isolates a broken part and repairs or replaces it.... Although this strategy has saved countless lives and reduced pain and suffering, it nevertheless treats the disease and not the patient, with all their unique habits, lifestyle mistakes, environmental exposures, psychosocial interactions, and genetic predispositions.”
― Paul Cerrato, Reinventing Clinical Decision Support: Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, and Diagnostic Reasoning