Principal of Unity in science?

Question

In anatomy, my professor talked about the Principal of Unity, and The Principal of Emergence. What's a good way to quickly define the Principal of Unity for my notes?

Answer 1

principle of unity has to do with oneness and how all bodily functions are united.

Answer 2

It seems to be the idea that all scientific findings must ultimately mesh with all other scientific findings. The temptation is to try to reduce everything to physics.

The Unity of Science is often thought to be reductionist, but this is because we fail to distinguish questions from answers. The questions asked by different sciences are different---the biologist is interested in different topics from the physicist, and seeks different explanations---but the answers are not peculiar to each particular science, and can range over the whole of scientific knowledge. The biologist is interested in organisms--- concept unknown to physics---but explains physiological processes in terms of chemistry, not a mysterious vital force. The replacement of Laplacian determinism by quantum mechanics further erodes the tendency towards reductionism. The answers given in different explanations are not subsumed under one complete theory; and quantum mechanics does not have a concept of haecceitas, "this-i-ness" which would make its entities the fundamental constituents of everything.
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~jrlucas/unity.html

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Cheers,
Bruce