Customer Reviews

Consilience: the Unity of Knowledge

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This was a book cautiously selected and ravenously read. It is full of the kind of logic that delights the mind and tidies up the loose ends of scientific enquiry. Not for the religious, unless you have an open mind.

This was not a book for dipping into, it is a page-turner and is written in a style that keeps it interesting from front to back. A must read. I have passed it on to many other appreciative colleagues. You will do the same.

E.O. Wilson is among the world's most eminent scientists, largely for his work on ants. this book reflects some prfound musings about his beliefs that all human knowledge is heading toward a state of "consilience", a kind of ultimate unity. It's pretty much a must-read, whether you agree or not, for anyone who thinks about thought.

My major criticism is that when Wilson wanders into sociobiology, where the complexity of his ideas is probably more appropriate to ants than humans, and the weird analogies with plant life determining future trajectory kind of miss the complexity of development in creatures which have a memory and individual capacity for learning. Ah well. Nobody is perfect.

Anyone who learns to think would not believe the Bible. So he says.

This is a cut beyond excuse.