Division fallacy

Biological Parallel

Elephants are large, therefore elephant cells must be large. This is the division fallacy: properties of wholes don't transfer to parts. In reality, elephant cells are the same size as mouse cells—elephants just have more of them. Scaling laws reveal: metabolism per cell decreases as organism size increases (Kleiber's Law). System-level properties (longevity, metabolic rate, cancer resistance) don't decompose linearly. The whole constrains the parts through emergent scaling relationships.