An enormous intellectual adventure. In this groundbreaking new book, the American biologist Edward O. Wilson, considered to be one of the world's greatest living scientists, argues for the fundamental unity of all knowledge and the need to search for consilience--the proof that everything in our world is organized in terms of a small number of fundamental natural laws that comprise the principles underlying every branch of learning. Professor Wilson, the pioneer of sociobiology and biodiversity, now once again breaks out of the conventions of current thinking. He shows how and why our explosive rise in intellectual mastery of the truths of our universe has its roots in the ancient Greek concept of an intrinsic orderliness that governs our cosmos and the human species--a vision that found its apogee in the Age of Enlightenment, then gradually was lost in the increasing fragmentation and specialization of knowledge in the last two centuries. Drawing on the physical sciences and biology, anthropology, psychology, religion, philosophy, and the arts, Professor Wilson shows why the goals of the original Enlightenment are surging back to life, why they are reappearing on the very frontiers of science and humanistic scholarship, and how they are beginning to sketch themselves as the blueprint of our world as it most profoundly, elegantly, and excitingly is.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
The biologist Edward O. Wilson is a rare scientist: having over a long career made signal contributions to population genetics, evolutionary biology, entomology, and ethology, he has also steeped himself in philosophy, the humanities, and the social sciences. The result of his lifelong, wide-ranging investigations is Consilience (the word means "a jumping together," in this case of the many branches of human knowledge), a wonderfully broad study that encourages scholars to bridge the many gaps that yawn between and within the cultures of science and the arts. No such gaps should exist, Wilson maintains, for the sciences, humanities, and arts have a common goal: to give understanding a purpose, to lend to us all "a conviction, far deeper than a mere working proposition, that the world is orderly and can be explained by a small number of natural laws." In making his synthetic argument, Wilson examines the ways (rightly and wrongly) in which science is done, puzzles over the postmodernist debates now sweeping academia, and proposes thought-provoking ideas about religion and human nature. He turns to the great evolutionary biologists and the scholars of the Enlightenment for case studies of science properly conducted, considers the life cycles of ants and mountain lions, and presses, again and again, for rigor and vigor to be brought to bear on our search for meaning. The time is right, he suggests, for us to understand more fully that quest for knowledge, for "Homo sapiens, the first truly free species, is about to decommission natural selection, the force that made us.... Soon we must look deep within ourselves and decide what we wish to become." Wilson's wisdom, eloquently expressed in the pages of this grand and lively summing-up, will be of much help in that search.
From Library Journal
Historically, all of the sciences were once united under the rubric of "natural science." Over time, they became fragmented and specialized. Nevertheless, Wilson argues that there is a genetic and neurological basis for knowledge and that all subjects of human inquiry can be reunited under the umbrella of "consilience."
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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More About the Author
Regarded as one of the world's preeminent biologists and naturalists, Edward O. Wilson grew up in south Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, where he spent his boyhood exploring the region's forests and swamps, collecting snakes, butterflies, and ants--the latter to become his lifelong specialty. The author of more than twenty books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Ants" and "The Naturalist" as well as his first novel "Anthill," Wilson, a professor at Harvard, makes his home in Lexington, Massachusetts.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
204 of 217 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
In this ambitious work, Edward O. Wilson, one of the most distinguished scientists of our times, and a man I greatly admire, goes perhaps a bit beyond his area of expertise as he envisions a project that is perhaps beyond even the dreams of science fiction. "...[A]ll tangible phenomena," he writes on page 266, "from the birth of stars to the workings of social institutions, are based on material processes that are ultimately reducible, however long and tortuous the sequences, to the laws of physics."
This in a nutshell is his dream of "consilience." It is also the statement of a determinist. My problem with such a laudable endeavor (and with determinism in general) is this: even if he is right, that the arts and the humanities will ultimately yield to reduction, how do we, limited creatures that we are, do it? It seems to me that in the so-called soft sciences like sociology, economics, and psychology, for example, and even more so in the world of the humanities and the arts, reduction is so incredibly complex that such an attempt is comparable (in reverse order) of putting Humpty Dumpty back together again. It's ironic that Wilson uses almost exactly this metaphor on page 296 to explain why once the rain forests are chopped down, they're gone forever. He notes, "Collect all the species...Maintain them in zoos, gardens, and laboratory cultures...Then bring the species back together and resynthesize the community on new ground." Will this work? Wilson's answer is no. He writes, "...biologists cannot accomplish such a task, not if thousands of them came with a billion-dollar budget. They cannot even imagine how to do it." He adds, still on page 296, that even if biologists could sort and preserve cultures of all the species, "they could not then put the community back together again. Such a task...is like unscrambling an egg with a pair of spoons."
This is exactly how I feel about the consilience of human knowledge. I cannot even imagine how reductionism could help us to understand a poem. There is a dictum among poets that "nothing defines the poem but the poem itself." No amount of reduction will allow us to understand what makes the poem tick. This is because the poem is an experience, a human emotional, intellectual, sensual experience dependent upon not only the literal meaning of the words, but on their connotations, their sounds, their rhythm, their relationships to one another, their syntax, their allusions, their history, their use by other poets, etc., and also what the individual reader of the poem brings to the experience. Reduce the poem and you do not have an understanding of the poem. At best you have an essay on the poem, at worst something alien to the esthetic experience. In essence, I should say that the problem with consilience is that our experience is not reducible.
I have read a lot of what Professor Wilson has written, including On Human Nature (1978), the charming memoir, Naturalist (1994), parts of The Ants (1990) and his controversial, but ground-breaking and highly influential, Sociobiology (1975). And I have read some of his critics, most recently essayist Wendell Berry's Life Is a Miracle (2000) and Charles Jenck's piece in Alas, Poor Darwin (2000). What has struck me in these readings is the disconnection between what Wilson has written and what some critics have criticized him for writing! For example it is thought that Wilson is a strict biological determinist when it comes to human behavior. But here he writes, very clearly on page 126, "We know that virtually all of human behavior is transmitted by culture." Wilson has had to weather more than his share of unfair criticism because, as the father of sociobiology, which some mistakenly see as a furtherance of a rationale for eugenics, he has been made the target of the misinformed. Additionally, Wilson is not the lovable sort of genius we adored in Einstein, nor the heroic scientist overcoming a terrible handicap as in the case of Stephen Hawking, but a slightly nerdish genius from Alabama who spent much of his life crawling around on the ground and in trees looking at ants. Some people make it clear that such a man should not presume to tell them anything about human beings and how we should conduct our lives or how we should view ourselves. But I think they are wrong. Wilson brings unique insights into the human condition, and he has the courage of his convictions. I think he is a man we should listen to regardless of whether we agree with him or not.
Even if its central thesis is wrong, Consilience is nonetheless an exciting book, full of information and ideas, elegantly written, dense, at times brilliant, a book that cannot be ignored and should be read by anyone interested in the human condition regardless of their field of expertise.
This in a nutshell is his dream of "consilience." It is also the statement of a determinist. My problem with such a laudable endeavor (and with determinism in general) is this: even if he is right, that the arts and the humanities will ultimately yield to reduction, how do we, limited creatures that we are, do it? It seems to me that in the so-called soft sciences like sociology, economics, and psychology, for example, and even more so in the world of the humanities and the arts, reduction is so incredibly complex that such an attempt is comparable (in reverse order) of putting Humpty Dumpty back together again. It's ironic that Wilson uses almost exactly this metaphor on page 296 to explain why once the rain forests are chopped down, they're gone forever. He notes, "Collect all the species...Maintain them in zoos, gardens, and laboratory cultures...Then bring the species back together and resynthesize the community on new ground." Will this work? Wilson's answer is no. He writes, "...biologists cannot accomplish such a task, not if thousands of them came with a billion-dollar budget. They cannot even imagine how to do it." He adds, still on page 296, that even if biologists could sort and preserve cultures of all the species, "they could not then put the community back together again. Such a task...is like unscrambling an egg with a pair of spoons."
This is exactly how I feel about the consilience of human knowledge. I cannot even imagine how reductionism could help us to understand a poem. There is a dictum among poets that "nothing defines the poem but the poem itself." No amount of reduction will allow us to understand what makes the poem tick. This is because the poem is an experience, a human emotional, intellectual, sensual experience dependent upon not only the literal meaning of the words, but on their connotations, their sounds, their rhythm, their relationships to one another, their syntax, their allusions, their history, their use by other poets, etc., and also what the individual reader of the poem brings to the experience. Reduce the poem and you do not have an understanding of the poem. At best you have an essay on the poem, at worst something alien to the esthetic experience. In essence, I should say that the problem with consilience is that our experience is not reducible.
I have read a lot of what Professor Wilson has written, including On Human Nature (1978), the charming memoir, Naturalist (1994), parts of The Ants (1990) and his controversial, but ground-breaking and highly influential, Sociobiology (1975). And I have read some of his critics, most recently essayist Wendell Berry's Life Is a Miracle (2000) and Charles Jenck's piece in Alas, Poor Darwin (2000). What has struck me in these readings is the disconnection between what Wilson has written and what some critics have criticized him for writing! For example it is thought that Wilson is a strict biological determinist when it comes to human behavior. But here he writes, very clearly on page 126, "We know that virtually all of human behavior is transmitted by culture." Wilson has had to weather more than his share of unfair criticism because, as the father of sociobiology, which some mistakenly see as a furtherance of a rationale for eugenics, he has been made the target of the misinformed. Additionally, Wilson is not the lovable sort of genius we adored in Einstein, nor the heroic scientist overcoming a terrible handicap as in the case of Stephen Hawking, but a slightly nerdish genius from Alabama who spent much of his life crawling around on the ground and in trees looking at ants. Some people make it clear that such a man should not presume to tell them anything about human beings and how we should conduct our lives or how we should view ourselves. But I think they are wrong. Wilson brings unique insights into the human condition, and he has the courage of his convictions. I think he is a man we should listen to regardless of whether we agree with him or not.
Even if its central thesis is wrong, Consilience is nonetheless an exciting book, full of information and ideas, elegantly written, dense, at times brilliant, a book that cannot be ignored and should be read by anyone interested in the human condition regardless of their field of expertise.
42 of 44 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
As an undergraduate in the early 1980s I was profoundly influenced by the paradigm-shifting academic movement begun by Professor Wilson in his work, Sociobiology. The idea that human social behavior was the product of thousands of years of ancestral genetic competition was a refreshing rejoinder to the dogma espoused at that time in conventional Sociology and Anthropology courses. In the years after university I have watched as Wilson's thesis has gradually achieved greater acceptance. Even many feminists and psychologists who once viewed Wilson's work as an anathema have come to realize that the ideas he popularized have changed forever their fields of study.
It was with this background that I jumped into Consilience, hoping for new insight. What I discovered was a cogent argument for the need to break down the very same academic barriers that I recognized years ago as an undergraduate. In another book I read recently, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, the philosopher Daniel Dennett argued that the fallout from Darwin's work on evolutionary natural selection has completely disrupted and changed forever the intellectual landscape in which we live. Wilson makes essentially the same argument, but his book is more often prescriptive than diagnostic. He argues that the same synthesis which has been tenuously achieved in "hard" sciences such as physics, chemistry and molecular biology can be achieved in all branches of learning. He suggests roadmaps for achieving this integration in the social sciences as well as the arts and religion.
Most interesting of all is Wilson's discussion of the need for greater understanding of the biological underpinnings of morality and ethics. Wilson correctly recognizes that for all of humanity's scientific and technological achievement, if our species is to thrive well into the future we must come to terms with ourselves and recognize certain truths that our biological history has imposed on us. That recognition will necessarily entail major changes in the way we live, both at the individual and the societal level. Ultimately, however, Wilson is a conservative - not in the ideological sense, but in recognizing the need to preserve many traditions that anchor us to our cultural heritage.
This is a wonderful, well-researched, engagingly-written book by one of the most important scientists of the 20th Century. Readers looking for a peek into the future of intellectual discourse need look no further than Consilience.
37 of 39 people found the following review helpful
By "michaeleve"
Format:Paperback
E.O.Wilson has come up with an arcane word for the title of his book, the meaning of which you will not find in your regular OED. I eventually read elsewhere that CONSILIENCE is the convergence, jumping, or bringing together of knowledge. The long time spent in frustrating dictionary searches has caused me to yield to temptation and toss an equally odd word at Wilson's book in this review. Is it indeed Procrustean by being a created and arbitrary standard that he demands intellectual conformity to, or is he simply ahead of his time and has a real vision of a coming "unity of knowledge"?
For persons in the humanities and social sciences this book may sting a little. Wilson is used to criticisms of his own work because of his insistence on using sociobiology as the lens through which he sees all. Long ago after having a jug of water dumped on his head and being told he "was all wet", Wilson seemingly realized that in order to be read he would have to develop a moderate, well reasoned, and mild writing style. You'll never read one of his books and come away thinking "diatribe" or "polemic". He even writes with a recognition and acknowledgement of his own biases. He says here that "ethics is everything" and for Wilson this largely means environmental ethics, and if after reading his book, critics want to say he's a reductionist, Wilson admits he's "guilty, guilty, guilty." Wilson however is quite able to give as good as he gets and the subject of his critical penmanship is the arts, humanities, and social sciences, and their "ideological committments" and lack of a "web of causal explanation." He thus sees them as weak in comparison to the natural sciences and poor templates for explaining all we see around us. Furthermore he looks back on the Enlightenment and says that those thinkers "got it mostly right" and achieved a wholeness in contrast to what we have now where divisions in academia are "artifacts of scholarship."
My background is in economics and geography and I don't have a problem with him saying there should be more rigidity and rules in those fields of study, and I agree that there should be more environmental awareness in economics. Maybe Wilson is onto something and sociobiology as a synthesis science might be a forerunner of the blended knowledge that will finally give us a clear view of the Big Picture. Who knows? His argument does tend to falter a bit though when he grasps for the humanities and discusses the laws that might be applicable in art and philosophy. It's a tenuous grip indeed as he is unconvincing in explaining how you achieve "objective truth" by "contemplation of the unknown" which he admits is was philosophy is. And please tell me what law governs the interpretation of a work of art?
It's a fascinating book and very well written. It's obvious Wilson has done a lot of research on the subject and he's a brilliant thinker and he may be mostly right. But Einstein the great unifier himself, once said that "imagination is more important than knowledge", so i'm inclined to go with that until Wilson or someone else can prove otherwise..
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Every word is brilliant
I have been interested in interdisciplinarity for many years, and have struggled with the right words to describe my belief that the connections between fields -- including the... Read more
Published 20 days ago by Brendan P.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Groundbreaking
Mostly known as one of the world's great experts on ants, E. O. Wilson seems to toss off other little books in his spare time, and they revolutionize the thinking about humanity's... Read more
Published 24 days ago by Xander Barthes
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mind Expanding
This is the kind of book you can open anywhere & become interested. Sounds like its for egg heads, but don't be offput. I love it enough to have it on my coffee table. Read more
Published 2 months ago by CowgirlBabs
2.0 out of 5 stars
Somewhat disappointing
Your reaction to this difficult read will depend on your starting point. If you are reasonably scientifically literate and fairly widely read, the concept of consilience will not... Read more
Published 3 months ago by B. Newman
5.0 out of 5 stars
I thoroughly stimulating book
The lateral and unifying thoughts of a great thinking scientist. I could spend hours on just considering one page. It's invigorating.
Published 3 months ago by UltraFeedback
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sixteen years after publication, it stands as a book for the ages.
Though not his last, "Consilience" will probably stand as Wilson's capstone book. It is a magnificent survey of all of science. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Graham H. Seibert
2.0 out of 5 stars
Points in the right direction, just doesn't seem to go there
I've been meaning to read Wilson for a while now, but I regret starting with this. While his wish to unite the various academic disciplines into a single corpus of knowledge seems... Read more
Published 14 months ago by jafrank
1.0 out of 5 stars
E. O. Wilson is a hypocritical pseudo-'some-time'-scientist!
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E. O. Wilson no doubt, has contributed much to Science.
-
BUT! When a 'supposed' "Scientist" demonstrates an 'addiction' to a make-believe, fairy-tale... Read more
E. O. Wilson no doubt, has contributed much to Science.
-
BUT! When a 'supposed' "Scientist" demonstrates an 'addiction' to a make-believe, fairy-tale... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Trenchant
5.0 out of 5 stars
Consilience Book Review
Consilience is defined as the unity of all knowledge bases. Edward O. Wilson, a biologist at Harvard University, explores a many different disciplines (ranging from the Sciences to... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Ushnik Ghosh
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ambitious, yet humble
In this ambitious book, Edward O. Wilson argues for what he calls consilience; the goal of the unification of knowledge from the natural sciences, social sciences and the... Read more
Published 20 months ago by Fritz-Anton
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 100
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100
books
cite this book:
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- On Human Nature: Revised Edition by Edward O. Wilson on 4 pages
- The Two Cultures (Canto) by C. P. Snow on page 90, page 126, and Back Matter
- Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Edition by Edward O. Wilson in Front Matter, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Human Universals by Donald Brown in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Paradise Lost (Penguin Classics) by John Milton on page 211, and page 213
See all 100 books this book cites
- A Chinese Ethics for the New Century (Ch'ien Mu Lecture in History & Culture) by Donald J. Munro on 5 pages
- Across the Great Border Fault: The Naturalist Myth in America by Kevin Dann on 4 pages
- Writing Environments by Sidney I. Dobrin on 4 pages
- Inbreeding, Incest, And The Incest Taboo: The State of Knowledge at the Turn of the Century by Arthur P. Wolf on 4 pages
- Missing the Revolution: Darwinism for Social Scientists by Jerome H. Barkow on 4 pages
See all 100 books citing this book
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