"In general, as physicians, we have accepted a reductionist hypothesis about the nature of reality. This article of faith...is that any complex system such as the human body, can best be understood through knowledge of its most elementary parts.

The inexorable progression in research has been from structure to function, from macroscopic to microscopic dimensions, and from mechanics to physiochemical phenomena. The human body thus fragmented metaphysically and by research has become known more in its tiniest dimension than in its wholeness

This view has had a very salutary effect in certain categories of disease; it has been fruitless in maladies that have psychological, social, and cultural determinants."

G. Gayle Stephens - The Intellectual Basis of Family Practice, 1982