Inspiration of complexity science on research of traditional Chinese medicine

Traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) belongs to complexity scientific system.We can use the method of complexity science to study TCM and make it more modern and scientific.The complexity science has made deeply comprehension of the TCM research object——human being.It guides us to resolve the inheritance and development problems in TCM by integrated TCM holistic thinking with reductive thinking of wostern medicine.Applying complexity scientific methods for TCM research must follow the principles:employing sub-level research,simplifying the complex problem,emphasizing on expertise,building the complexity of system model.According to the different fields and levels of TCM,we can select specific methods,such as the complex adaptive system(CAS) model,"from qualitative to quantitative synthesis" and so on.