reductionist

[ ri-duhk-shuh-nist ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

adjective

based on or explained by an analysis of the simplest or most basic factors of a complex phenomenon:
A reductionist experiment is essential to isolating the impact of a single variable on the ecosystem as a whole.
simplistic to the point of minimizing, obscuring, or distorting a complex idea, issue, or condition:
Both stories describe the same reality, but your reductionist version fails to capture the full truth.

a person who believes that everything can be explained by reducing complex ideas or issues to their simplest component parts:
To reductionists, all other worldviews are unscientific and sloppy, so they often choose to ignore evidence from observational studies.

The short version is that it seems on the one hand zoological and on the other hand reductionist.

Democrats tend to believe that the facts will set them free, and that spinning them is reductionist.

And Gitlin's blanket assumption that being gay means who you 'sleep with' is reductionist bigotry.

The noteworthy difference: In this case, the reductionist rhetoric caricatures fervent supporters rather than staunch critics.

Literate language is a reductionist machine, which we use to look at the world from the perspective of our own experience.

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