Full Idea
The prevailing reductionist climate implies that quantum mechanics inevitably provides a more fundamental explanation for the periodic system.
Gist of Idea
Orthodoxy says the periodic table is explained by quantum mechanics
Source
Eric R. Scerri (The Periodic Table [2007], 08 'Concl')
Book Reference
Scerri,Eric R.: 'The Periodic Table' [OUP 2007], p.224
A Reaction
Scerri has argued that chemists did much better than physicists in working out how the outer electron shells of atoms worked, by induction from data, rather than inference from basic principles.