Consilience among the great branches of learning

Daedalus

Volumn 127, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 131-149

  Wilson, Edward O ^a  

^a HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; HISTORY; KNOWLEDGE; SCIENCE;

HISTORY, MODERN 1601-; KNOWLEDGE; SCIENCE;

EID: 0032324774     PISSN: 00115266     EISSN: 15486192     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (24)

1. This essay presents in much abbreviated form some of the arguments in my book-length exposition of the same general subject, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (New York: Knopf, 1998).
2. The Ionian enchantment is discussed by Gerald Holton in Einstein, History, and Other Passions (Woodbury, N.Y.: American Institute of Physics Press, 1995).
3. The Shorter Science and Civilisation in China: An Abridgment of Joseph Needham's Original Text, Vol. I, prepared by Colin A. Ronan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978).
4. In characterizing the prediction of three-dimensional protein structure, I benefited greatly from an unpublished paper presented by S. J. Singer at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in December 1993; he has also kindly reviewed my account.
5. On the opinions of cell and developmental biologists concerning the frontiers of their field, see "Looking to Development's Future," by Marcia Barinaga, Science 266 (1994): 561-564.
6. Among the many recent works I have used to interpret the consensus of students of the mind-body problem are Patricia S. Churchland, Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1986);
7. Paul M. Churchland, The Engine of Reason, the Seat of the Soul (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995);
8. Antonio R. Damasio, Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1994);
9. Daniel C. Dennett, Consciousness Explained (Boston: Little, Brown, 1991);
10. J. Allan Hobson, The Chemistry of Conscious States: How the Brain Changes Its Mind (Boston: Little, Brown, 1994);
11. and Stephen M. Kosslyn and Oliver Koenig, Wet Mind: The New Cognitive Neuroscience (New York: Free Press, 1992).
12. Alfred Kroeber and Clyde K. M. Kluckhohn, "Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions," Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, vol. 47 (1952), no. 12, 643-644.
13. On basic facial expressions: the literature, including smiling, is reviewed by Charles J. Lumsden and Edward O. Wilson in Genes, Mind, and Culture (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981)
14. and by the pioneer behavioral biologist Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt in Human Ethology (Hawthorne, N.Y.: Aldine de Gruyter, 1989).
15. On the fear of snakes and the origin of the serpent myth: Balaji Mundkur, The Cult of the Serpent: An Interdisciplinary Survey of Its Manifestations and Origins (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1983)
16. and Edward O. Wilson, Biophilia (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984).
17. On incest and its avoidance in human beings and other primates: Arthur P. Wolf, Sexual Attraction and Childhood Association: A Chinese Brief for Ed-ward Westermarck (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1995)
18. and William H. Durham, Coevolution: Genes, Culture, and Human Diversity (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1991).
19. The expression gene-culture coevolution and a first general theory pertaining to it, in the sense of combining models from genetics, psychology, and anthropology, were provided by Lumsden and Wilson in Genes, Mind, and Culture. A review and update of the subject are given in my more general book Consilience.
20. "Gap analysis" is a term I have borrowed from conservation biology. It means the method of mapping known ranges of threatened plant and animal species and using the information to select the best sites to set aside as reserves. See J. Michael Scott and Blair Csuti, "Gap Analysis for Biodiversity Surveys and Maintenance," in Marjorie L. Reaka-Kudla et al., eds., Biodiversity II: Understanding and Protecting Our Biological Resources (Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry Press, 1997), 321-340.
21. A full account of the biological and cultural origins of color perception and vocabulary is given by multiple authors in Trevor Lamb and Janine Bourriau, eds., Colour: Art & Science (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
22. On the optimum amount of redundancy in design: see the review by Charles J. Lumsden and Edward O. Wilson, Promethean Fire (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983).
23. On female facial beauty: "Facial Shape and Judgements of Female Attractiveness," by D. I. Perrett et al., Nature 368 (1994): 239-242.
24. Other aspects of ideal physical characteristics are discussed by David M. Buss in The Evolution of Desire (New York: BasicBooks, 1994).