Unsimple Truths – Science, Complexity, and Policy : Science, Complexity, and Policy

The author argues that the long-standing scientific and philosophical deference to reductive explanations founded on simple universal laws, linear causal models, and predict-and-act strategies fails to accommodate the kinds of knowledge that many contemporary sciences are providing about the world.

In "Unsimple Truths", Sandra D. Mitchell argues that the long-standing scientific and philosophical deference to reductive explanations founded on simple universal laws, linear causal models, and predict-and-act strategies fails to accommodate the kinds of knowledge that many contemporary sciences are providing about the world. She advocates, instead, for a new understanding that represents the rich, variegated, interdependent fabric of many levels and kinds of explanation that are integrated with one another to ground effective prediction and action. Mitchell draws from diverse fields including psychiatry, social insect biology, and studies of climate change to defend "integrative pluralism" - a theory of scientific practices that makes sense of how many natural and social sciences represent the multilevel, multicomponent, dynamic structures they study. Ultimately "Unsimple Truths" argues that the very idea of what should count as legitimate science itself should change.