The citizens of contemporary society are clearly divided by a great cleavage which announces itself everywhere, but has now taken form as State Premiers place broad bans on the ‘unvaxxed’, bayed on by most Australians. How are we to reconcile contradicting views when we find convincing experts on each side of any argument? We need only a starting point, and can attempt to locate the source of such division later. Let us set science as this starting point; more specifically the contradicting understandings of science.

On one hand science is understood to be at best reductionist, while on the other hand that reductionism is understood to be sufficient. The difference is subtle, but it is there. It lies between understanding the whole as either greater than the sum of the parts (as they are merely perceived), or equal to the sum of the parts. The later is a nominalist position which will render its adherents unable to percieve nor conceive of universals/abstract objects. The ‘three-body problem’ of Newtons classical physics illustrates this ...