CHAOS THEORY AND FRACTAL ANALYSIS - THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS AND A PRACTICAL EXAMPLE - REDUCTIONISM IN BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE - THE IMPLICATIONS OF FRACTAL AND CHAOS THEORY

Reductionism is the process by which scientific theories are encompass ed by more ''inclusive'' or ''basic'' theories. The thesis of this ess ay is that reductionism in the biological and medical sciences may be practically unattainable. This thesis is based on the relatively new t heories of fractals and chaos. I hope to show that the concepts of sel f-similarity and sensitive dependence on initial conditions constitute huge theoretical obstacles to the reduction of biomedical theories to molecular biology.