I must say that reductionism is my default position. And that this is at base a value I have chosen. I did not consider the usefulness of reduction or unity until I encountered the ideas of Sabine Hossenfelder. The idea that reduction, unity, and elegance might be holding inquiry back is a new idea that I am increasingly sympathetic to.
Something I also did not consider much was the sociology of science. It seems, at least from my outsider perspective, that the highest status scientist is a theorist who either predicts an experimental result observed decades in the future, or a theorist who synthesizes disparate observations. This value, insofar as it is true, stems from a reductionist perspective. I see reductionism being harmful to inquiry if only because it favors some scientific roles over others, theoretical over applied, theorist over experimentalist, discovery over reproducibility.
Something I also did not consider much was the sociology of science. It seems, at least from my outsider perspective, that the highest status scientist is a theorist who either predicts an experimental result observed decades in the future, or a theorist who synthesizes disparate observations. This value, insofar as it is true, stems from a reductionist perspective. I see reductionism being harmful to inquiry if only because it favors some scientific roles over others, theoretical over applied, theorist over experimentalist, discovery over reproducibility.