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yates9's review against another edition
4.0
A difficult book that tests your definitions of science, progress and beliefs. The author crosses issues looking both ways and taking careful account of the scientific ecosystem and into the broader human condition.
The term consilience is applied to many scenarios so it is not always crystal clear. The author suggests that extending our investigation into the natural world by connecting activities to their biological, neuroscientific fundamentals we could understand social sciences like even economics as emergent from principles that go as far down as the physical sciences.
The author’s definition of free will is my favoured one that ultimately the argument on its existence is pointless given the impossibility of reconciling the scale of degrees of freedom, sensitivity to natural phenomena. Those that state it does not exist have no realistic way to demonstrate as much.
The book initially does not indicate what the big picture choices of values could or should be. It is not tech positivist but rather science method-ist bridging to all areas of human activity. The idea is we should study all without limits in the key of biological sciences particularly looking at impact of heredity and adaptation.
In the first part of the book the author takes as a fundamental truth a certain kind of enlightened progress. The idea is that consilient knowledge would help humanity “advance”. The problem with this is the author does not address how some areas of study themselves can be pandora boxes for important risks. From dividing society to technological developments that increase existential risk. Though the author underlies the importance of ethics there is little dedicated to precautionary principle, particularly where in the bioscience we have already run into problems.
At the end of the book the author introduces the problematic balancing of the growth based economies of the world and the impact on environment. This end is a sudden twist to the plot becaus now we take into implicit consideration the values of sustainability of civilisation. This consideration and focus should have been a lens from the beginning of the book as it would reframe consilience and its potential controversies around the bigger risk of environmental collapse.
I am surprised that the author does not directly address how some new ideas, technology and knowledge can increase existential risks over the long term. Consilience between areas of knowledge is not exempt from this problem. Case in point the author describes economics with a glossy picture (very different from my own) and explains that connection to psychology and neuroscience can unlock a whole new world of possibilities. I would say that since publicatiom many neuroeconomics learnings are applied in an exploitative way. Who cares? But this is the sort of activity could drive tail risks way up…
Basically across most of the text what is good for the author is a kind of evolutionary transformation of knowledge. But in this area he does not consider the risks in some of his ideas and directions. And when we reach the drama of the final chapter and it presenting only the space for a narrow escape for humanity I wonder how he can reconcile that it would be thanks to consilience that humanity “survives”?
Basically the issue is scientific investigation according to whatever style or means is almost always a consequence of a political direction. It seems simplistic to think consilient knowledge would solve these problems alone.
The term consilience is applied to many scenarios so it is not always crystal clear. The author suggests that extending our investigation into the natural world by connecting activities to their biological, neuroscientific fundamentals we could understand social sciences like even economics as emergent from principles that go as far down as the physical sciences.
The author’s definition of free will is my favoured one that ultimately the argument on its existence is pointless given the impossibility of reconciling the scale of degrees of freedom, sensitivity to natural phenomena. Those that state it does not exist have no realistic way to demonstrate as much.
The book initially does not indicate what the big picture choices of values could or should be. It is not tech positivist but rather science method-ist bridging to all areas of human activity. The idea is we should study all without limits in the key of biological sciences particularly looking at impact of heredity and adaptation.
In the first part of the book the author takes as a fundamental truth a certain kind of enlightened progress. The idea is that consilient knowledge would help humanity “advance”. The problem with this is the author does not address how some areas of study themselves can be pandora boxes for important risks. From dividing society to technological developments that increase existential risk. Though the author underlies the importance of ethics there is little dedicated to precautionary principle, particularly where in the bioscience we have already run into problems.
At the end of the book the author introduces the problematic balancing of the growth based economies of the world and the impact on environment. This end is a sudden twist to the plot becaus now we take into implicit consideration the values of sustainability of civilisation. This consideration and focus should have been a lens from the beginning of the book as it would reframe consilience and its potential controversies around the bigger risk of environmental collapse.
I am surprised that the author does not directly address how some new ideas, technology and knowledge can increase existential risks over the long term. Consilience between areas of knowledge is not exempt from this problem. Case in point the author describes economics with a glossy picture (very different from my own) and explains that connection to psychology and neuroscience can unlock a whole new world of possibilities. I would say that since publicatiom many neuroeconomics learnings are applied in an exploitative way. Who cares? But this is the sort of activity could drive tail risks way up…
Basically across most of the text what is good for the author is a kind of evolutionary transformation of knowledge. But in this area he does not consider the risks in some of his ideas and directions. And when we reach the drama of the final chapter and it presenting only the space for a narrow escape for humanity I wonder how he can reconcile that it would be thanks to consilience that humanity “survives”?
Basically the issue is scientific investigation according to whatever style or means is almost always a consequence of a political direction. It seems simplistic to think consilient knowledge would solve these problems alone.
derelict_kami's review against another edition
2.0
As another reviewer said, if you've already got a serious grounding in the history of science and philosophy, there isn't going to be much here for you. I managed a few chapters before skipping ahead to see if this was going anywhere new to me, and it wasn't.
This isn't so much an indictment of the book, as it is that I'm not the target audience for it.
This isn't so much an indictment of the book, as it is that I'm not the target audience for it.
danchibnall's review against another edition
5.0
E.O. Wilson is a brilliant human being and this book shows it. Consilience is an attempt to connect different areas of human understanding and human exploration. Basically it tries to show how taking an empirical, scientific approach to other divisions of human knowledge will make it easier for us to understand our world. A wonderful book for those looking to bridge the gaps between the humanities, social sciences, arts, and natural sciences.
benrogerswpg's review against another edition
3.0
Good book. Interesting concepts and learned a lot. Can be a little dry at times though.
juliana_aldous's review against another edition
4.0
E.O. Wilson makes a case for unifying sciences and humanities. If you are interested in the movement to Big History this book will be of interest.
jamietyrol's review against another edition
5.0
This is one of my favorite books of all time. E. O. Wilson is a generous writer. The reader is never made to feel stupid as scientific concepts are made accessible to the layperson. An inspiring book.
schleyer's review against another edition
3.0
Considering that I agree with its empiricist conclusions, I found the arguments pretty uninspired. In particular, all the examples of how one might analyze the arts or complex social issues from a “scientist” standpoint were totally rudimentary and superficial. And for a book that speaks out against tribalism, it has a pretty tribal Eurocentric vibe, especially with his snide remarks against gender or racial studies. I like Wilson’s other, more focused works much better.
holodoxa's review against another edition
5.0
Consilience is a term coined by E. O. Wilson to describe the phenomenon of different scientific fields coming together to provide a more complete understanding of a particular phenomenon. In some ways, it is also a recognition that the project of science is unified. In other words, it's the idea that different fields of science can converge to provide a more comprehensive explanation of the world around us. Science often uses reductive approaches to ascertain truth. Wilson's idea prod science toward a synthetic approach.
Wilson believed that this convergence of knowledge was essential for understanding the complexity of the natural world, and that by working together, different fields of science could provide a more complete picture of the world than any one field could on its own. For example, by combining the findings of biology, chemistry, physics, and other fields, we can better understand the mechanisms of evolution and how life has evolved on Earth. By combining genetics, anthropology, geography, and paleontology, we've have learned an enormous amount about the history of the human species (See David Reich's Who We Are And How We Got Here).
In his book Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, Wilson argues that the pursuit of consilience is essential for making progress in science and for gaining a deeper understanding of the world around us. He also argues that the pursuit of consilience should be at the heart of all scientific endeavors, and that scientists should work together across disciplines to achieve this goal.
Consilience is a high impact work that prophesied many of the intellectual developments of the future (now our present) and will likely continue to be prescient on developments that have yet to come to pass (but are now clearly germinating). It is a wide-ranging and intriguing book that also contains some outdated figures and errant speculation. However, I don't think we should penalize this type of thing when it is done rigorous and carefully. This is exactly what E. O. Wilson did.
E. O. Wilson is a towering figure in the history of science, whose influence and importance is hard to overstate. I think many can benefit from reading more of his work.
*I may return to this review to address some of Wilson's ideas, arguments, speculations more directly and in detail.
Wilson believed that this convergence of knowledge was essential for understanding the complexity of the natural world, and that by working together, different fields of science could provide a more complete picture of the world than any one field could on its own. For example, by combining the findings of biology, chemistry, physics, and other fields, we can better understand the mechanisms of evolution and how life has evolved on Earth. By combining genetics, anthropology, geography, and paleontology, we've have learned an enormous amount about the history of the human species (See David Reich's Who We Are And How We Got Here).
In his book Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, Wilson argues that the pursuit of consilience is essential for making progress in science and for gaining a deeper understanding of the world around us. He also argues that the pursuit of consilience should be at the heart of all scientific endeavors, and that scientists should work together across disciplines to achieve this goal.
Consilience is a high impact work that prophesied many of the intellectual developments of the future (now our present) and will likely continue to be prescient on developments that have yet to come to pass (but are now clearly germinating). It is a wide-ranging and intriguing book that also contains some outdated figures and errant speculation. However, I don't think we should penalize this type of thing when it is done rigorous and carefully. This is exactly what E. O. Wilson did.
E. O. Wilson is a towering figure in the history of science, whose influence and importance is hard to overstate. I think many can benefit from reading more of his work.
*I may return to this review to address some of Wilson's ideas, arguments, speculations more directly and in detail.