Each of these core assumptions is grounded in an outdated mechanistic
worldview that is at odds with today’s scientific understanding of the
world. Today, most researchers realize that, as John Muir said, “When we
try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else
in the Universe.” Unfortunately, one of mechanism’s core tenets is that
everything in the world can be broken into separate parts with little or no reference to the
patterns of relation among those parts. French philosopher Rene Descartes, for example,
maintained that to understand a complex phenomenon you need to break it down to its
component parts (reductionism).