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sunday_evening's review against another edition
3.0
Read for class, at some times a little too science-y for me but still fairly easy to understand. I like Wilson’s writing style as well.
miklosha's review against another edition
4.0
E.O. Wilson is considered to be a pretty controversial figure. The person who started the field of 'sociobiology', the one who is now challenging evolutionary psychology's basic understanding of altruism, and is also a leading advocate for conservationism and environmental sustainability is going to turn a few heads (both in admiration and anger).
"Consilience: the Unity of Knowledge", one of his older books, really should be considered a companion work next to his book introducing Sociobiology. Wilson's argument, that the only way for knowledge to progress and scientific understandings and developments to prosper, is for both the natural sciences and the social sciences to end their feuds and work together. Both branches off invaluable insight, research, and information about human nature and yet, both pictures are incomplete. Joining both could be of immense benefit to all. Most of his book covers the concept of a biology/culture co-evolution, which would be a good mechanism for reuniting the social and the natural sciences.
For the exception of chapters 9-11, Wilson's book is hardly controversial; indeed, I can't imagine any legitimate criticisms that would cause Wilson to revise his argument. Chapter 9 (on the social sciences), Chapter 10 (on the interpretation of Arts), and Chapter 11 (Ethics & Religion) are the only parts of the book that I could see incite some kind of anger, from say a sociologist, a postmodernist, a theologian, and the like.
From a philosophical perspective, Wilsons argument on the 'unity of knowledge' is vague; Wilson doesn't clarify what he means by knowledge and how to unify 'all knowledge'. Also, his levels of analysis, that every discipline can be reduced to biology or even physics, is an immensely daunting and arguably impossible task. Lastly, for all his goals in his book, his writing is rather vague; he is rather poetic and while it is a great quality in a writer, much of his arguments beg clarification.
I personally found his arguments to be persuasive and given how dated this book is, current research on the three respective fields of the social sciences, the arts, and religion have yielded swaths of information that should motivate Wilson to write an updated version of Consilience.
Overall, the book is incredibly well argued and should form the backbone of arguments advocating for the joining of the natural and the social sciences.
"Consilience: the Unity of Knowledge", one of his older books, really should be considered a companion work next to his book introducing Sociobiology. Wilson's argument, that the only way for knowledge to progress and scientific understandings and developments to prosper, is for both the natural sciences and the social sciences to end their feuds and work together. Both branches off invaluable insight, research, and information about human nature and yet, both pictures are incomplete. Joining both could be of immense benefit to all. Most of his book covers the concept of a biology/culture co-evolution, which would be a good mechanism for reuniting the social and the natural sciences.
For the exception of chapters 9-11, Wilson's book is hardly controversial; indeed, I can't imagine any legitimate criticisms that would cause Wilson to revise his argument. Chapter 9 (on the social sciences), Chapter 10 (on the interpretation of Arts), and Chapter 11 (Ethics & Religion) are the only parts of the book that I could see incite some kind of anger, from say a sociologist, a postmodernist, a theologian, and the like.
From a philosophical perspective, Wilsons argument on the 'unity of knowledge' is vague; Wilson doesn't clarify what he means by knowledge and how to unify 'all knowledge'. Also, his levels of analysis, that every discipline can be reduced to biology or even physics, is an immensely daunting and arguably impossible task. Lastly, for all his goals in his book, his writing is rather vague; he is rather poetic and while it is a great quality in a writer, much of his arguments beg clarification.
I personally found his arguments to be persuasive and given how dated this book is, current research on the three respective fields of the social sciences, the arts, and religion have yielded swaths of information that should motivate Wilson to write an updated version of Consilience.
Overall, the book is incredibly well argued and should form the backbone of arguments advocating for the joining of the natural and the social sciences.
sunburial's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.25
Truly an expansive piece of work that took me much longer to finish reading than I would normally like to admit. Covered the entirety of the sciences in a relatively short period of time with extremely dense argument made across all chapters. The end petered off a little bit due to repetitive argument making around the humanities but otherwise any complex systems thinker with a deeply vested interest in watching science reconcile itself with nature should read this book.
theyoungveronica's review against another edition
5.0
Gene-culture coevolution, the Ionian enchantment, "dreaming is a kind of insanity, a rush of visions"...
"The labyrinth of the world is thus a Borgesian maze of almost infinite possibility. We can never map it all, never discover and explain everything. But we can hope to travel through the known parts swiftly, from the specific back to the general, and—in resonance with the human spirit—we can go on tracing pathways forever. We can connect threads into broadening webs of explanation, because we have been given the torch and the ball of thread. There is another defining character of consilience: It is far easier to go background through the branching corridors than to go forward."
"Take the ‘edge of chaos’, one of the most frequently cited paradigms of complexity theory. It starts with the observation in a system containing perfect internal order, such as a crystal, there can be no further change. At the opposite extreme, in a chaotic system such as boiling liquid, there is very little order to change. The system that will evolve the most rapidly must fall between, and more precisely on the edge of chaos, possessing order but with the parts connected loosely enough o be easily altered either singly or in small groups."
"The central idea of the consilience world view is that all tangible phenomena, 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."
"Neuron systems are directed networks, receiving and broadcasting signals. They cross-talk with other complexes to form systems of systems, in places forming a circle, like a snake catching its own tail, to create reverberating circuits. Each neuron is touched by the terminal axon branches of many other neurons, established by a kind of democratic vote whether it is to be active or silent. Using a Morselike code of staccato firing, the cell sends its own message outward to others."
"Mind is a stream of conscious and subconscious experiences. It is at root the coded representation of sensory impressions and the memory and imagination of sensory impressions...Consciousness consists of the parallel processing of vast numbers of such coding networks.
"The etiology of culture wends its way torturously from the genes through the brain and senses to learning and social behavior. What we inherit are neurobiological traits that cause us to see the world in a particular way and to learn certain behaviors in preference to other behaviors. The genetically inherited traits are not memes, not units of culture, but rather the propensity to invent and transmit certain kinds of these elements of memory in preference to others.
"Genes prescribe epigenetic rules, which are the regularities of sensory perception and mental development that animate and channel the acquisition of culture. Culture helps to determine which of the prescribing genes survive and multiply from one generation to the next. Successful new genes alter the epigenetic rules of populations. The altered epigenetic rules change the direction and effectiveness of the channels of cultural acquisition."
"The labyrinth of the world is thus a Borgesian maze of almost infinite possibility. We can never map it all, never discover and explain everything. But we can hope to travel through the known parts swiftly, from the specific back to the general, and—in resonance with the human spirit—we can go on tracing pathways forever. We can connect threads into broadening webs of explanation, because we have been given the torch and the ball of thread. There is another defining character of consilience: It is far easier to go background through the branching corridors than to go forward."
"Take the ‘edge of chaos’, one of the most frequently cited paradigms of complexity theory. It starts with the observation in a system containing perfect internal order, such as a crystal, there can be no further change. At the opposite extreme, in a chaotic system such as boiling liquid, there is very little order to change. The system that will evolve the most rapidly must fall between, and more precisely on the edge of chaos, possessing order but with the parts connected loosely enough o be easily altered either singly or in small groups."
"The central idea of the consilience world view is that all tangible phenomena, 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."
"Neuron systems are directed networks, receiving and broadcasting signals. They cross-talk with other complexes to form systems of systems, in places forming a circle, like a snake catching its own tail, to create reverberating circuits. Each neuron is touched by the terminal axon branches of many other neurons, established by a kind of democratic vote whether it is to be active or silent. Using a Morselike code of staccato firing, the cell sends its own message outward to others."
"Mind is a stream of conscious and subconscious experiences. It is at root the coded representation of sensory impressions and the memory and imagination of sensory impressions...Consciousness consists of the parallel processing of vast numbers of such coding networks.
"The etiology of culture wends its way torturously from the genes through the brain and senses to learning and social behavior. What we inherit are neurobiological traits that cause us to see the world in a particular way and to learn certain behaviors in preference to other behaviors. The genetically inherited traits are not memes, not units of culture, but rather the propensity to invent and transmit certain kinds of these elements of memory in preference to others.
"Genes prescribe epigenetic rules, which are the regularities of sensory perception and mental development that animate and channel the acquisition of culture. Culture helps to determine which of the prescribing genes survive and multiply from one generation to the next. Successful new genes alter the epigenetic rules of populations. The altered epigenetic rules change the direction and effectiveness of the channels of cultural acquisition."
narrowdesign's review against another edition
There was a little story at the end that I couldn't remember but tried to write a version of and liked the detached simplicity:
“Homo sapiens was an upright primate. It was the first organism to possess the potential to improve itself and its environment. Physically and emotionally, it was fragile. It could be lured or repelled by symbols (written or spoken), destroyed slowly and without force by countless microscopic forms of life or slight changes to its environment, or killed quickly by pea-sized condensed matter propelled at 0.000001 the speed of light. It grew concerned it had become too powerful and lost its connection to nature (spelled “God” or “Science” by some groups). This concern was foremost for the survival of Homo sapiens. Individuals and like-minded groups spent their energy in attempts to exist indefinitely in any form (microscopically throughout the DNA, storage devices, and dwellings of as many Homo sapiens as possible, or ideally, as promised by many symbols in storage devices, in an eternal state impervious to existential threat).”
“Homo sapiens was an upright primate. It was the first organism to possess the potential to improve itself and its environment. Physically and emotionally, it was fragile. It could be lured or repelled by symbols (written or spoken), destroyed slowly and without force by countless microscopic forms of life or slight changes to its environment, or killed quickly by pea-sized condensed matter propelled at 0.000001 the speed of light. It grew concerned it had become too powerful and lost its connection to nature (spelled “God” or “Science” by some groups). This concern was foremost for the survival of Homo sapiens. Individuals and like-minded groups spent their energy in attempts to exist indefinitely in any form (microscopically throughout the DNA, storage devices, and dwellings of as many Homo sapiens as possible, or ideally, as promised by many symbols in storage devices, in an eternal state impervious to existential threat).”