Reduction and Unification

It sheds light on closely related issues, such as reduction and unification, pragmatic benefits of reduction, and notions of scientific levels (Chap. 9). ... 

This is the main issue between those who oppose the idea that actually, we could carry out a unification of sciences by way of actual steps of reduction, and those who take this assumption, at least as an assumption guiding the investigation, to be promising. The former view is discussed at some length in Darden and MauU (1977), a prominent example of the latter is Oppenheim and Putnam (1958). 

This chapter continued the debate on the relation between holistic approaches to reduction (Chap. 8), with an eye on the relation between reduction and forms of unification, and it applied the explication proposed here to issues such as reduction and grounding, reduction and intervention, reduction and physicalism, and reduction and the notion of scientific levels. One notion of a scientific level is tied to modes of presentations, in a way that can, again, be illuminated referring to property structures. Unification is to be expected in reductions We subsume apparently different phenomena under one coherent conceptual scheme, achieve ontological unification and epistemic as well as explanatory unification. Reduction is a cognate, or a version of grounding, and knowledge of true reduction statements has an impact on the set of intended interventions we have access to. 

Along with the reduction-unification concepts, there have arisen ways to view nature using concepts such as thermodynamics and equilibrium. Forces such as enthalpy and entropy have been defined and invoked as integral parts of the consideration of ensembles of particles. Equilibrium states thus came to be regarded as the outcome of dynamic processes. 

Phosphorylation of dCDP to dCTP (step k, Fig. 25-14) completes the biosynthesis of the first of the pyrimidine precursors of DNA. The uridine nucleotides arise in two ways. Reduction of UDP yields dUDP (stepFig. 25-14). However, the deoxycytidine nucleotides are more often hydrolytically deaminated (reactions I and / )- Methylation of dUMP to form thymidylate, dTMP (sfep n, Fig. 25-14), is catalyzed by thymidylate synthase. The reaction involves transfer of a 1-carbon unif from methylene tetrahydrofolic acid with subsequent reduction using THF as the electron donor. A probable mechanism is shovm in Fig. 15-21. See also Box 15-E. Some bacterial transfer RNAs contain 4-thiouridine (Fig. 5-33). The sulfur atom is introduced by a sulfurtransferase (the Thil gene product in E. coli). The same protein is essential for thiamin biosynthesis (Fig. 25-21). ... 

Summing up, the fears of authors such as Needham and Hettema are unfounded the rejection of reduction does not undermine the unification of science. Far from leading to a disintegrated science, our Kantian-rooted pluralism incorporates a wide and meaningful articulation between scientific theories and disciplines. By recognizing the variety of intertheoretic relationships possible in science, this non-reductive unification transcends the conventional boundaries that separate rather than bring closer — the different disciplines of science. 

The replacement of styrenic material has been substantial and covers a wide spectrum of applications ranging from automotive to appliance and packaging. The driving forces for this change include cost reduction, performance improvement, unification to monomaterial, weatherability, and chemical resistance. In the automotive area, the major driving forces have been unification of materials, noise reduction, thermal stability, and weatherability. The use of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) resin in the interior of the vehicle, particularly in the automotive door panels and trim, package trays, and center consoles, has primarily been... 

There is no direct link to explanation however, the idea is that reductions should go together with different kinds of unification, with explanation of the reduced theory, and with the explanation of why the reduced theory worked as well as it did. 

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