 (ii) Methodological reduction is the idea that biological systems are most fruitfully investigated at the lowest possible level, and that experimental studies should be aimed at uncovering molecular and biochemical causes (Andersen 2017). A common example of this type of strategy is the decomposition of a complex system into parts (Bechtel and Richardson 1993); a biologist might investigate the cellular parts of an organism in order to comprehend its behavior, or investigate the biochemical components of a cell to understand its features. While methodological reductionism is often motivated by a presumption of ontological reduction, this procedural recommendation does not follow directly from it. In fact, unlike token-token reduction, methodological reductionism can be quite controversial. It has been argued that exclusively reductionist research strategies exhibit systematic biases that overlook relevant biological features, and that for certain questions a more fruitful methodology consists in integrating the discovery of molecular causes with the investigation of higher level features (Wimsatt 1980,  2007).[1]