Environmental Science Research Methods: A Comprehensive Analysis

This report delves into the research methods employed in environmental science, contrasting the reductionist and holistic approaches. It highlights the necessity of both perspectives for a comprehensive understanding of the environment, its constituents, and their interactions. The report discusses the challenges of applying a holistic approach in field experiments and the subsequent reliance on reductionist analysis, which involves breaking down complex systems into individual components. It explores the inherent conflict between these approaches, particularly in scientific studies, and the debates surrounding the balance between them. The report suggests integrating both methods to analyze components and understand the overall system, drawing parallels with healthcare management. References to relevant literature support the analysis, providing context to the application of these research methods in environmental science.

Running head: RESEARCH METHODS IN ENVIRONMENT SCIENCE
Research Methods in Environment Science
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1RESEARCH METHODS IN ENVIRONMENT SCIENCE
Reductionism can be understood as the approach of analyzing a system to the smallest
constituent part in order to gain a deeper understanding of its mechanisms, while a holistic
approach refers to the development of an understanding of the overall concepts and the ‘big
picture’ that essentially embeds all the constituent parts (Delker and Mann 2017; Matua and
Van Der Wal 2015; Zeitoun et al. 2016; Berger 2018; Fischer et al. 2017)).
Within environmental sciences and natural sciences, a focus on both the holistic as well as
reductionist views is necessary to understand the environment and its constituents and also its
dynamics and interactions with each other within the natural environment. For field
experiments, it is often difficult however to have a holistic approach due to the presence of
different variables that can influence the overall outcomes and inferences due to which a
reductionist perspective of analyzing the subject by differentiating the various components
that plays key role in it and assessing how each component work. The understanding
development from each component then can be assembled to create an overall mosaic of
understanding thereby giving a holistic picture (Fardet 2017; Michalak et al. 2016; Kruth
2015; Elliott et al. 2017; Casey et al. 2016; Bray and Kwo 2016).
A conflict thus seems to emerge within natural sciences due to the dependence of reductionist
approach for scientific and analytical studies. Holistic approach thus often takes a lesser
precedence as the focus remains on understanding how the components of a natural system
can influence the system as a whole. This conflict therefore makes its way into the debates
and criticisms on the scientific approach that shows a clear reductionist inclination instead of
using a holistic approach. It has been often pointed out that due to the conflict, it is often
difficult for the researchers to balance both the reductionist as well as the holistic
perspectives to develop an unbiased and strong knowledge base that can support scientific
enquiries (Raerinne 2018; Kruth 2015; Michalak et al. 2016; Bray and Kwo 2016)

2RESEARCH METHODS IN ENVIRONMENT SCIENCE
In order to address such a problem, it can be suggested that scientific enquiries utilize the
approach of focusing inb both the reductionist approach to abaklyse the constituents and parts
of a system, as well as a holistic approach to understand the interaction of the parts in the
overall system. This can allow researchers to not only understand the components of the
natural and environmental systems but also understand how each part influences the overall
system of the environment and ecology. Thus research methods can focus on the analysis of
each component as well as focus on the overall picture of maintaining the ecosystem and
environment (Ponte et al. 2016; Elliott et al. 2017; Kruth 2015; Matua and Van Der Wal
2015; Fischer et al. 2017).
This approach can be seen in the case of healthcare management and delivery, that not only
douses on the reductionist approach of diagnosing and treating the patients, but also the
holistic approach of maintaining their health and wellbeing, beyond just the recovery of the
disease but also focusing on how to maintain the health and wellbeing if the patients. This
dualistic approach can therefore be useful for integrating aspects of both reductionist and
holistic methods to create stronger knowledge base and understanding of the natural
ecosystem and the environments (Fardet 2017; Fardet 2017; Michalak et al. 2016; Kruth
2015; Elliott et al. 2017; Casey et al. 2016; Bray and Kwo 2016).

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