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Summary: Vast and summarized source of knowledge
Review: It's a very succinct and clear expression of the Author's perspective of how to unify knowledge (disciplines of sciences, humanities and arts). He clearly has a biogenetic perspective in every single subject he discusses in this book, but it truly finds a way to keep the Author's own ideas unbiased and provides an objective opinion on religion, ethics, arts, environmental issues (although somewhat dramatic -as it should be), and the evolution of human kind. I would definitely read this book once more and would be tempted to read more of this Author's works.
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Summary: Wilson appears to take a "leap of faith" in Consilence.
Review: In speaking about the "Ionian Enchantment" Wilson feels that its central "tenet, as Einstein knew is the unification of knowledge. When we have unified enough certain knowledge, we will understand who we are and why we are here." This sounds like consilence to me. Wilson has no scientific proof that this will happen. We have the age old debate I cannot prove scientifically that there is a God (I believe there is) and Wilson cannot prove scientifically that there is not a God. True he is talking about the Ionian enchantment but I think he should make more use of the conditional tense.
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Summary: WILSON'S BOOK IS SILLY. THE SPIRIT OF JAH LIVES!
Review: Wilson is eloquent as ususal spinning out a complex web of thoughts pulled in from a plethora of sources all in support of his 'biology as god' thesis. But, in the final analisis, I find his book to be silly. He is the champion of an outmoded paradigm in its final death throws poviding convincing arguments only for those who find it convenient to believe that material science is the only source of knowledge and wisdom. The turth is humans are like little babys groping in the darkness or out ignorance. Shortly before his final departure from the Earth Buckminster Fuller made the following declaration: "We're on the threshold of the Omnichrist." I wish Buky was here today to debate latter day scientific materialists like Wilson.
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Summary: His strengths and his weaknesses seem--well, consilent.
Review: Last week I read CONSILIENCE. Today I read the 50 or so reviews here. Readers like his energetic hopeful-idealistic attempt toward better knowledge. They dislike his monism, one-sidedness, his I would say emotional, very "human," attraction toward his--pet theory? Well, preferred position, of the biogenetic as the centrality of things--all things. I see in the book these two things: the good (useful) desire to add useful but still-overlooked information (about biogenetics) to help understand humanity in general, and the bad emotional sway, trend, feel to gaze upon the biogenetic as the center. I am less troubled by this monistic drift toward his pet place (we all are ideo-centric; I myself am a compulsive? holist-integrationist-synthesizer, so there), than I am by the fact that we do need proof, or examples. The main parts of the fine arts will not be illuminated, per se and as such, by biogenetics. See--within the field of "integrative studies" in academe today, I find many calls for true integration, but few examples that that very difficult thing can be achieved. IN SUM: did Wilson create a good attempt, but flawed a bit by (1) biogenetic monism/centrism, (2) wishful thinking as to just how much integration really can be achieved? And that's my own take on it.
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Summary: An incredibly rich book
Review: "Consilience" contains an amazing wealth of information and ideas about almost everything on Earth. I read this book once, but you could read it 20 times (as I intend to do!) and only scratch the surface. Although Wilson is understandably biased to the scale of organismic biology (he was trained as an entomologist), he intelligently discusses art, ethics, religion, and philosophy. If we are lucky, this tremendously exciting book will set the themes of learning for the next century.
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Summary: A masterpiece of synthesis!
Review: Clearly one of the best books of the decade. Edward O. Wilson has one of the finest scientific minds of the twentieth century. "Consilience" is a beautifully written, sweeping synthesis of science and the arts. Wilson writes, "The love of complexity without reductionism makes art; the love of complexity with reductionism makes science." Wilson, like all of us, appears to fall short of his objective at times, but what an effort! Where are the books from his critics? None of the negative reviews I've read of "Consilience" rise to the intellectual level of the work itself. Highly recommended.
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Summary: To the reader below....
Review: Just a note to the reviewer below... LAY OFF THE RHETORICAL QUESTIONS! Talk about muddling the issue...On a lighter note, I must say that I enjoyed the book. The skeptic in me was summoned when the definition of 'meme' was brought on, but one can't deny that Wilson writes science just as poetically as anyone in the field (and without being so poetic as to mislead... Gould anyone?). Readers of this book tend to heartily agree or find themselves strongly opposed - not many stroll along with indifference. Consilience raises some interesting and contorversial issues, many of which (I think) are quite significant. Well worth the read...
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Summary: Is this how far we've come?
Review: If my faith is in free will, then does not all else become irrelevant, except to choose between either nihilism or hope? My fate in the hands of a scientist. All my thoughts nothing but silent chemical murmurings, heard by nothing. Progress towards what, and how will I find it if I can't choose it, but must derive it? Where are Plato's forms? Isn't that which is transcendent, immanent as well? What powers the formula, if it be not will? Something from nothing, a long algebraic calculation. The ultimate algorithm. The universe as a computer. Or no, as software, but run on what? If you were to perform all the calculations on me in a very powerful computer, and tell me what I was bound to do on the basis of your calculations, then would I not do something different, just out of the capricious need to be free? Values based on what? If it's all in the genes and chemical processes, and these are understood, then am I naught but my own chemical processes telling my own chemical processes what to do? Isn't there at least a hint of paradox in this? Let's make it easier. Just for the sake of argument, let's say it's all genes. I know that no one is trying to go this far, but it makes the argument easier to see. If I decided to change, say, a gene 152, which we can and will do, then it must be because another gene, say, gene 153 made me do so. But what if in the capriciousness need to be free, I change gene 153 so that I won't want to change gene 152. But that's no help because, actually, gene 137 said that I would do that. Well, then, I'll change gene 137 as well. Well, that's still no help because gene 125 said I'd do that. And so on and so on ... and how far will you take this process? How far can you take it? Till Death? What is there exactly between cause and effect? How does cause ever reach effect? How can you build a system of values on something that is in itself malleable and changeable? We can alter our genes. We can alter the chemical processes of our brain. Who knows what "laws" of physics we might dare dream of changing in the future? Do I dare build my values on such shaky foundations. We lust for foundations, but is not materialism- ahem, I mean- deism just one more totem? One more sacred image for the holy to enter into? Where is Dostoevsky when you need him? Does anyone still read Notes from the Underground? Can anyone really answer what numbers are except the apprehension of something other. One. I and it. I and thou. Why? If it's all a chain of cause and effect then that which exists outside of me might as well exist in me? But then why do I feel so separate? Why do I feel at all? Why is there an observer in me longing for freedom? Is the conception of the greater Self given in the Upanishads really just another religion to be shot down as we move towards greater enlightenment? Or is it a realization that can be pointed to rationally, but only apprehended intuitively? The collapsing of a reality wave, the big bang. Are we so sure that these things were not and are not choices? I'll not give up my freedom, and do all you can with your sciences, I'll help you, science is a good thing. But come to your senses, don't grip too tightly what you'll have to let go of later.
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Summary: Worth the read...
Review: Whether you agree with Wilson's premise or not, this book is a courageous effort. I think the subject taxes the ability of any one author to produce, yet Wilson's attempt to make sense of the relationships between science, the humanities, and religion is very thought provoking. Hopefully this book, and other's like it, will stimulate discussion among these camps instead of of causing them to retreat deeper into their caves.
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Summary: Didn't grand theory die some time ago?
Review: Wilson's Consilience amounts to grand theorizing of Parsonian scale and suffers from the same flaws. Wilson's thesis is an attractive one. I believe that much has been lost in our neglect of the value of cross-disciplinary perspectives. However, no one person should even attempt to bring these vast fields of knowledge together. Such one-man attempts will ultimately lose credibility due to -- as Wilson does -- selective reading and presentation of various fields. On a final note, it appears in some places that Wilson really doesn't buy his own arguments -- especially concerning cultural inputs on biological evolution.
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