The reductionist view has become, for many, an article of faith, causing them to claim that every aspect of our world, no matter how awe-inspiring, is “nothing but” the mechanical motion of particles acting predictably on each other. This view is summed up by Nobel laureate Francis Crick, one of the discoverers of the DNA molecule: You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.34
