Father Knows Best? The shortcomings of scientific reductionsism

We humans have a somewhat macabre tendency chop things into little bits in an attempt to understand them. In fact, modern western society is uncommonly proud of the knowledge we have gained from our scientific methods. We have set ourselves up at the top of the pyramid as the experts- the authority figure on science and technology that defines how the world turns and have reduced the role of Mother Nature to that of a bit player.

This reductionism has proved very useful to us. By chopping things up into smaller and smaller parts, assigning them a particular function in the scheme of things and then categorizing them, we do our best to deduce the ‘rules’ by which the world and mother nature are supposed to operate.

Through this process we have managed to conduct a systematic study of our world, breaking it into many separate fields; physics, mathematics, astronomy, and biology, just to name a few.  We have deduced the general structure and functions of atomic and subatomic particles (then went on to blow up several hundred thousand people with that knowledge), theorized about various aspects of electricity, computers and electronics and then promptly proceeded to glue cell phones to our ears and computer monitors to our eyeballs. In the last century or so, we even managed to roughly figure out DNA’s existence and function and begun mixing up our own Frankenstein animals and plants to suit our fancy- it’s anyone’s guess to how that might turn out.

We value these kernels of knowledge that we have managed to glean from chopping the world up into little bits and separating the resulting pieces into piles. We like to name these little piles that we’ve made out of the world; in chemistry we have the periodic table of elements that encompasses the scope of our existence in neat little letters: C, N, O, H and so on.

In biology, we categorize the pieces of living matter into useful labels as well… Of course, scientists can’t just use common terms like dog, cat, cow- So, in order assure that everyone knows we are committing particularly scientific acts, the scientists must classify all these creatures. In Biology this accounts for the fact that we call all the other plants and critters that inhabit ‘our’ world by scientific names: Canis familiaris, Felis cattus, Bos taurus…

We like to simplify the issues- to reduce the problem into black and white. This kind of scientific dialecticism certainly makes it easier to attack and issue.  To break it down into constituent parts makes it easier for us to categorize the parts and their functions. Also, true to our Puritan heritage, this practice makes it easier for us to figure out what is ‘good’ and ‘bad’.

This particular form of “good or bad” thinking has gained popularity in the western mind- especially in the United States- where we have gone gaga over the latest scientific fads resulting from reductionist thinking. The general public tends to blindly trust the knowledge handed to us from the (loudest) mouths of the scientific establishment. We see this trend particularly well in the constant waves of “nutritionist” food fads that follow pronouncements from our esteemed nutritional scientists (who can never seem to agree about anything). Pronouncements declaring new nutritional enemies and allies can make or break the sales of a food in the supermarket- and lead to interesting consequences along the American waistline.

We increasingly are encountering issues with this reductionist technique- of separating the parts from the whole: the belief that we can somehow reduce a system to the sum of its parts- ignoring the complexity and interconnectedness of said system. Much of the study of nutritionist science is based on this separationist  thinking. Studies will be done on particular foods within populations and (more often than they’d like to admit) those conducting the studies will attribute the positive or negative results not to the entire context of the food (the population’s activity level, when they eat, what else they eat in combination with the food, how it was processed and stored, etc), but to only one of it’s constituent parts- say, Vitamin A or a particular anti-oxidant that is currently all the rage. (For more information read Michael Pollan’s excellent book: In Defense of Food).

If truth be told, these reductionist techniques yield very mixed results- and even the things that we thought that we 100% we sure of are constantly being called into question. One year (or decade) we are assured unequivocally that fat is the enemy, then all of the sudden Carbs take the stage as the nutritional villain- And surprise! Fats, which we were supposed to avoid at all costs aren’t really that bad- they don’t contribute to cancer at all and their link to heart disease is tenuous at best. In fact, some of them are absolutely essential for important little things like silky hair, good skin and oh yeah, brain development and mental health. And remember those other supposedly ‘healthy’ scientifically man-made trans fats (in margarine and other processed ‘food-like’ substances) that they urged us to replace the traditional dietary fats with – those actually do cause cancer.  Oops.

Of course, this all works out for the food processing companies, as they just follow along with the latest food science fad. Fats are bad? No worries- we’ll just take it out and add more carbs. Is vitamin E the Hero of the day? No problem- we’ll just fortify it!!! Zinc? Folic Acid? Antioxidants? We’ve got it covered! But do we ever stop to think that maybe we don’t have it all covered? That by reducing our foods down to their constituent nutrients and injecting them into processed products willy-nilly that we might be missing out on something essential? That perhaps the constituent parts created by Mother Nature tare not as interchangeable as gears in a machine?

The problem that rears it’s ugly head is that many of the essential nutrients that we have identified (and there are many more that we have no idea of yet) do not function all by their lonesome in a vacuum. Instead they are part and parcel of a system of interacting, interlocking parts.

We humans evolved as part of that system as well- a context of foods, activities, of life and death and evolution – an entire complex ecosystem designed by Mother Nature. By breaking our foods apart, purifying individual nutients and injecting them into a neat scientific pill form or fortifying our breakfast cereals, we are loosing the synergy of that system- the very substances that are a boon when taken in context of a whole food can become a poison to our systems when taken separately. Beta carotene- believed to be a helpful cancer preventative when ingested in the form of a whole food such as a carrot, has been shown to actually promote certain kinds of cancer when taken as a supplement in pill form. Divorced from its context the nutrient becomes something other than what it was as part of its system.

We see the dark side of reductionist science in other areas as well. In the decades following the 1980’s, the general public became aware of the plight of endangered species. What we should have been worried about was endangered ecosystems. After several decades with much hurry and flurry, it has become increasingly clear that the environmental movement’s focus on saving one species within a particular ecosystem has proved ungainly, costly and largely ineffectual.

We have discovered that the endangered animals are not separate “units” that can be “saved” outside of the ecosystem that they inhabit, but rather part and parcel of that entire system- and can no more be “saved” outside of that system than a sno-cone can be ‘saved’ outside of a refrigerator on a hot summer day- it is the very environs, the other plants, animals and even the abiotic elements (minerals, water) that are tied together in one living, dynamic system. We ignore this element of change, of the very complex aliveness of these natural systems (of which we are all a part) at our peril.

Reduced to a simple recipe of parts, we are again and again surprised when these parts do not add up to make a whole. Something is always missing, but we don’t yet have the knowledge to know what it is. Reductionist thinking is a useful tool with which to examine our world- but falling into the trap of thinking that it will provide us with all the answers is pure folly.  The complex systems that have evolved in nature over time, cannot (at least right now) be broken down into separate parts and dissected without loosing the synergy that results from their interaction.

Sometimes Mother does know best.

Alien Invaders

It is suggested that invasive species can cause the extinction of locally adapted species.  Habitat destruction is the number one cause of extinction, and many experts suggest that invasives may come in second.  Further, they suggest that we may be setting ourselves up for an impoverished world in terms of biodiversity if we do not stop the spread of invasives.  Yet the  issue is not 100% clear. Species taken out of their context and introduced into a new one (sometimes ill-suited to accept it), so-called “Invasives” have historically proven that they may have some benefits to offer us as well.

It started with a sprout. A very healthy sprout. It shot up alongside the garden gate, growing what seemed like inches each day. Its waxy greenish oval leaves seemed impossibly lush in the heat of our summer climate, where all around it the dried out husks of foxtail grasses and scrub brush rustled aridly in the wind. It crowded out any living plants that had survived the rapid onset of our summer desert temperatures. It was so healthy, so just plain vigorous in fact, that I decided to let our little prodigy grow- in the hopes of finding out what it could be…

And it grew and grew and GREW… I’d never seen anything like it. It seemed like a plant possessed, a real go-getter, if you will. From a small (if energetic) sprout in the early summer, it grew into something much more like a tree by the beginning of fall, towering over the gate and providing an area of unexpected shade and relief from the sun. I bought a bench and placed it underneath, creating a reading area in the new island of cool it bestowed.  Along its long graceful branches blossomed hundreds of small cheery yellow, trumpet-like flowers . If I stayed still long enough I’d be surrounded by a stream of hummingbirds, darting in to take advantage of those trumpet-like flowers. Chirping at each other in challenge as they encroached on each other’s precious airspace.

I was surprised by my (not so little) over-achiever and more than a little mystified. Where did this plant of herculean vigor come from? What leant it the almost bionic skill, the ability to be “better, faster, stronger” than the other plants surrounding it? A fruitless search on the internet was cut short by a discovery outside the realms of “da interwebs”. During a field trip for a Natural Resources class I was taking, the identity of our mystery plant was revealed, and the unveiling wasn’t entirely a pleasant one. Our little guest was technically more of an invader- Nicotiana glauca, otherwise known as tree tobacco. A native to Bolivia and Argentina, this aggressive plant had little to no competition in the area and easily towered over the local shrubs.

According to invasive.org and several other websites, “ Wild tobacco is a highly invasive opportunistic weed, and easily out-competes natural vegetation in regrowth or disturbed areas. It is also thought to be toxic to livestock if eaten in sufficient quantities”. It is a “tall shrub or small tree in the nightshade family (Solanaceae, of family that contains potatoes and tomatoes) with pendulous tubular yellow flowers an inch or more long. The oval leaves are 2 to 8 inches long with a waxy grayish covering. It is a rather weedy plant, yet somewhat attractive, especially to hummingbirds.” The seeds of this plant are eaten and spread long distances by birds.

My shady, graceful, flower covered Tree Tobacco is apparently pure poison. It is on the list of toxic plants in several states, including Texas, California, and North Carolina. To enhance the spiritual experience, tree tobacco is sometimes smoked by California Native Americans in combination with Datura wrightii, which may be dangerous as both plants induce respiratory depression. Although Nicotiana glauca has been publicized as a safe, hallucinogenic plant on some internet websites, smoking or ingesting the plant has frequently lead to death and parents are encouraged to keep the plant’s leaves and stems out of the reach of their offspring, for fear of accidental death. Say what?!

In addition to this damning testimony, our professor contributed another volley of condemnation: the plant was one of the worst invasive offenders- extracting water from the soil at a frightening rate and transpiring it away into the atmosphere- effectively desiccating the soil around it while at the same time outcompeting local shrubs and trees and displacing them.

After much reading about invasives, I felt I had as much of a handle on the issue as possible for the moment. Here is the basic argument against invasives, summed up in a few paragraphs:

A healthy ecosystem is composed of a complex set of interdependencies between its members that has developed over time. This set of relationships should be in cyclical flux over time. The introduction of a new invasive species (like my Tree Tobacco) can and will change this set of interdependencies- and affect far more than just a single plant or animal that is “replaced”.

Although not all introduced species have such detrimental effects, many invasives have the potential to do great harm to the local ecosystem into which they are introduced. This can result in the extinction of multiple local plant and animal species.  The entire food web along with its members (from bacteria and fungi to arthropods, earthworms, up to birds, mammals and beyond) can be decimated by the introduction of invasive species of plants or animals. (of course, this brings up the issue of many of our agricultural species such as  apples, colonial bees, etc, which we will have to deal with at a later time)

With the advent of rapid methods of modern transportation, this introduction is occurring at a much higher pace than in the past, species are now mixing much like a blender set to puree. And this “blender effect” is accelerating. The process of change occurs gradually as a matter of course in nature- but the speed at which the change is being spread is astronomically faster than in the past- not allowing many local ecosystems to adapt to the onslaught of new species. If you want a damning example look at the deadly effect of the Miconia on the forests of Tahiti…

Even in situations where the invasive does not cause a breakdown of the entire local ecosystem it still leaves the system highly vulnerable to a breakdown. As a genetic monoculture spreads over an ever-greater region, wiping out the specifically adapted individual species, the entire ecosystem becomes more vulnerable to an assortment of pathogens that can spread quickly and broadly through the population.

Now the dilemma. Do I heartlessly uproot this interloper? Or would it turn out to have some redeeming qualities? I had watched it grow for an entire summer, nursed it along sometimes, to tell the truth, with extra soaks from the watering can to support its ever-spreading canopy. Now I had to decide if I should tear it from the very ground of my garden and cast it out- a modern day Bible story reenacted.

Further research only muddied the issue… It seems that this noxious, sometimes deadly, aggressive ‘weed’ is also often used in decorative gardening as a way to attract hummingbirds to the garden. In “Hummingbird gardens” by Nancy L. Newfield, it is earmarked as a “very choice” plant species particularly suited for attracting our little darting feathered friends. And there was the delicious shade it had so quickly and temptingly provided in my otherwise searingly arid ‘gardenscape’.

Now that I knew the identity of my uninvited guest, I saw his relatives everywhere. Along the roadsides, in drainage ditches and even dominating a corner of the occasional garden. In our class we had learned how to efficiently uproot these invaders. With saw, root wrench and shovels, we had eagerly applied ourselves to the task- removing dozens of trees from the bottom of a clogged up riverbed near Irvine Ranch.

Finally, it was the very abundance of the plants that decided me. If I could slow the invasive tide and it’s consequences that much more by removing my one tree, then it would be worth it.  One morning, with a sad heart and a heavy shovel, I set out to cleanse my garden of this exotic invader. Next year I’ll plant a native shrub in its place… but I have to admit, I’ll miss Nicotiana glauca’s graceful branches and yellow flowers in my garden next year.