Systems Biology

There was a marked turnaround in my attitude towards science ever since I read Consilience. You can now call me a "Running Dog of Science" and so you can imagine my annoyance when the usual riff-raff wail about how science is reductionist and so cannot solve some of the important problems we face like our health and such. Ha! Even before the critique was fully understood by the critics themselves the erroneous approach has been rectified. Read the article in The Economist about "systems biology", it talks about the progress in a new area in Biology which has started to look at the body as a whole (system) rather than an individual cell or a part.
If the riff-raff didn't get it when science that was involved in the IPCC was not entirely reductionist, they might just get it now.
The thing about science, is that it does not believe that it is infallible, that it has The Final answer. So if and when criticisms arise they are observed, analysed and inferences drawn(avlokan, vishleshan, nishkarsh - my Hindi vocabulary has increased exponentially thanks to reading curriculum material of Prashika as part of our course) and path modifications are made accordingly. Let us find an other system which does it quicker and better and I would be a "Running Dog of That". Till then... let the sleeping dogs lie...zzzz...