Holism and Reductionism

Susan Blackmore and Mary Midgely talked about memes on the Today programme this morning. Susan Blackmore was putting the memetic view of religion, a reductionist account of why that particular set of ideas is so successful. Mary Midgely, as is her wont, insisted that the very idea of memes is reductionist rubbish, a useless oversimplification of the way that people really live. Susan Blackmore laughed graciously. She was far too polite to say "Of course I recognise that ideas cannot exist without people, neither can human genetic information. The point is that understanding culture as a product of people, environment and memes is better than not understanding culture at all; just as understanding evolution as a product of organisms, environment and genes is better than not understanding evolution at all. The reductive paradigm is explanatory. Holism, where it is not a rigorous synthesis of reductive explanations, is a tautology."