James Burke does a great job of contrasting holistic and reductionist thinking. At a Microsoft offsite a few years ago he was a guest speaker, and talked about the importance of exposing yourself to different kinds of thinking and different specialization rather than being narrowly focused all of the time on specific tasks. Afterwards I ran into him by the elevator and asked whether he saw this as part of the value of Google's 20% time. He said yes, very much so, although he hadn't wanted to make a big deal of it for the Microsoft audience.
Of course he also points out that reductionist thinking has values despite it's limitations. "It did, after all, give us the scientific revolution." Indeed.
My first introduction to this was Connections^2 in the 90's (back when TLC was "The Learning Channel"). It blew my mind then. They showed the original series to us in our engineering classes later on, using his book as the text for the course.
This is a fantastic series for entrepreneurs to both watch and understand. None of the big ideas are borne from the vacuum - they all stand on the shoulders of ideas from others before.
This is an extraordinary series. Watch the entire first season, and once you get to the last episode -- especially if you have an ounce of FLOSS in your bones -- I dare you not to stand on the couch yelling, "He knew it! He knew it! In NINETEEN SEVENTY NINE!"
It was in the air (zeitgeist). Think Unix before the AT&T lawyers (copyleft and BSD license hacks). And the Apollo launchpad starting scene says it all... (think STS)
This is one of those in-depth series which the BBC no longer seems to make. Burke pretty much dispels the notion of the lone genius inventor and shows how many technologies and ideas are linked as a historical process - sometimes in surprising ways.
Oh, you win the internets. I loved this series when I was a kid and never got to see quite enough of it. I went looking for it a couple of years ago without success. This is great!
I got the companion book as a Christmas present when I was ten or eleven, and only ever saw the television series much later. It's a really great combination of science and history, perfect for the young and nerdy, something that I'll probably give my son once he's old enough (assuming I can find a copy).
Of course he also points out that reductionist thinking has values despite it's limitations. "It did, after all, give us the scientific revolution." Indeed.