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6-1-1999 One giant leap. Review of: Consilience: the Unity of Knowledge by Edward O. Wilson
Robert Costanza Portland State University
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Citation Details Costanza, R. 1999. One giant leap. Review of: Consilience: the Unity of Knowledge by Edward O. Wilson. BioScience 49:487-488.
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One giant leap
Consilience: The Unity that all tangible phe- of Knowledge. Edward nomena, from the birth O. Wilson. Knopf, New of stars to the workings York, 1998. 332 pp. of social institutions, $26.00 (ISBN 0-679- are based on material 45077-7 cloth). processes that are ulti- mately reducible, how- “Consilience,” accord- ever long and tortuous ing to Webster’s dictio- the sequences, to the nary, is “a leaping laws of physics” (p. together.” Biologist Ed- 266). Deconstruction- ward O. Wilson’s latest ists and postmodernists, book, by that title, at- in this view, are merely tempts a grand synthe- gadflies, who are none- sis, or “leaping to- theless useful to keep gether,” of our current the “real” scientists state of knowledge by honest. Wilson takes “linking facts and fact- pains to point out the based theory across dis- centrality of the reduc- ciplines to create a com- tionist approach, from mon groundwork for a full chapter on its explanation” and a pre- roots in the Enlighten- diction of where we are ment to separate chap- headed. It is a tour de ters on its use in the force by one of our age’s natural sciences, psy- greatest scientists—one chology, genetics, evo- of the few who possess lution, the social sci- the depth and breadth ences, and ethics and of knowledge to even religion. He starts the attempt the task. natural sciences chap- After a brief introductory chapter of the mind has always been and ter (chapter 4) with vivid and heart- on how the author’s personal intel- always will be the attempted link- felt descriptions of the scientific lectual journey brought him to be age of the sciences and humani- method itself and what it takes to be passionately interested in the ques- ties. The ongoing fragmentation a good scientist (“bright enough to tion of consilience, the book is neatly of knowledge and resulting chaos see what needs to be done, but not so in philosophy are not reflections summarized (both in content and in of the real world but artifacts of bright as to suffer boredom doing tone) in the first paragraph of chap- scholarship. The propositions of it”; p. 58). Along the way, Wilson ter 2: the original Enlightenment are in- also provides often insightful com- creasingly favored by objective ments on the fundamental problems You will see at once why I believe evidence, especially from the natu- in the various disciplines that have that the Enlightenment thinkers of ral sciences. (p. 8) prevented or hindered consilience. the seventeenth and eighteenth For example, he notes that the weak- centuries got it mostly right the The book fleshes out and defends nesses of conventional economic first time. The assumptions they these propositions with numerous theory “can be summarized in two made of a lawful material world, examples from the natural sciences, labels: Newtonian and hermetic. the intrinsic unity of knowledge, and the potential of indefinite hu- the social sciences, and the humani- Newtonian, because economic theo- man progress are the ones we still ties. Wilson takes an unabashedly rists aspire to find simple, general take most readily into our hearts, logical positivist and reductionist laws that cover all possible economic suffer without, and find maximally approach to science and to con- arrangements...hermetic—that is, rewarding through intellectual silience, arguing that “the central sealed off from the complexities of advance. The greatest enterprise idea of the consilience world view is human behavior and the constraints
June 1999 487 imposed by the environment” (p. The consilience for which we are will make it a valuable addition to 197). really searching, I believe, is a more the library of any sustainable agri- Scholars from across the academic balanced and pluralistic kind of cultural researcher or educator. The spectrum will find much food for “leaping together,” one in which the first section contains three excellent thought, discussion, and disagree- natural and social sciences and the chapters that together ask some un- ment in all the book’s chapters. Al- humanities all contribute equitably. comfortable questions and chal- though there is probably broad agree- A science that is truly trans- lenge the reader’s thinking about the ment that integrating the currently disciplinary and multiscale, rather role of people in the environment. fragmented sciences and humanities than either reductionistic or holistic, The book ends with a synthesis that is a good idea, many will disagree is, in fact, evolving, but I think it will addresses the basic questions of the with Wilson’s neo-Enlightenment, be much more sophisticated and book: Can we “learn” our way to a reductionist prescription. The prob- multifaceted in its view of the com- more sustainable agriculture? And if lem is that the type of consilience plex world in which we live, the so, what does it take? envisioned by Wilson will not be a nature of “truth,” and the potential Facilitating Sustainable Agricul- real “leaping together” of the natu- for human “progress” than the En- ture is not just another sustainable ral sciences, the social sciences, and lightenment thinkers of the seven- agriculture book that is hung up on the humanities. Rather, he sees a teenth and eighteenth centuries could agriculture’s changing structure or total victory by the natural sciences ever have imagined. its dependence on fossil fuels, chemi- and the reductionist approach in gen- cals, and pesticides. It probes, tries eral. There are, however, several well- ROBERT COSTANZA to answer, probes again, and often known problems with the strict re- Center for Environmental Science, admits lack of conclusions because ductionist approach to science Biology Department, and sustainable agriculture is, after all, (Williams 1997), and several of its Institute for Ecological Economics about people. People defy quantifi- contradictions show up in the book University of Maryland cation, and so, perhaps, does their Solomons, MD 20688-0038 itself. environment. The book has many Wilson recognizes that the real faults, some admitted to by the au- issue in achieving consilience is one References cited thors. Its largest hurdle, for me, at of scaling—that is, how understand- Williams N. 1997. Biologists cut reductionist least, was the extensive use of socio- ing is transferred across the multi- approach down to size. Science 277: 476– logical jargon. As an agronomist, I tude of spatial and temporal scales, 477. struggled with many of the coined from quarks to the universe and ev- words, but I assume my social-sci- erything in between. But he seems to THE HUMAN FACTOR IN ence colleagues have just as much of fall back on the overly simplistic SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE a problem with agronomic lingo in reductionist approach to doing this— books pertaining to agronomic is- that if we understand phenomena at Facilitating Sustainable Agriculture: sues of sustainability. their most detailed scale, we can sim- Participatory Learning and Adap- The book starts with an introduc- ply “add up” in linear fashion from tive Management in Times of Envi- tory chapter by the editors that leads there to get the behavior at larger ronmental Uncertainty. Niels G. the reader into the deep waters en- scales. Although he states that “the Röling and M. Annemarie E. Wage- compassed in the book by defining greatest challenge today, not just in makers, eds. Cambridge University what is meant by sustainable agri- cell biology and ecology but in all of Press, Cambridge, UK. 1998. 318 pp. culture and the divergent opinions science, is the accurate and complete $85.00 (ISBN 0-521-58174-5 cloth). surrounding definitions of sustain- description of complex systems” (p. ability. Anyone who has followed 85), he puts aside some of the main Facilitating Sustainable Agriculture the writings of Jules Pretty will ap- findings from the study of complex is a major revision of the papers preciate his deep insights, expressed systems—that scaling in adaptive, from a 1993 workshop at the 15th in the second chapter, about the les- living systems is neither linear nor Congress of the European Rural So- sons learned from policies at work. easy, and that “emergent proper- ciological Society. Although the es- His chapter alone is worth the price ties,” which are unpredictable from sence of many of the presentations at of the book. Pretty even gets into the the smaller scale alone, are impor- this workshop remains, the papers issue of sustainable intensification tant. And although he acknowledges were modified and updated as the of agriculture, a term recently popu- on the one hand that analysis and book evolved. The resultant book is larized by the World Bank to intro- synthesis, reductionism and holism, a work in progress in which the edi- duce the concept of making sustain- are as inseparable as breathing out tors point out the “loose ends” of able agriculture more productive. and breathing in, Wilson glosses over sustainable agriculture. Overall, this The third chapter, by James the difficulty of actually doing the book provides a fascinating and us- Woodhill and Röling, has the in- synthesis in complex adaptive sys- able perspective by examining the triguing title, “The second wing of tems and the necessity of studying implications of ecologically sound the eagle: the human dimension in and understanding phenomena at agriculture for land users and other learning our way to more sustain- multiple scales simultaneously, rather stakeholders. able futures.” This chapter brings than reducing them to the laws of It is the organization of the book into play the basic premise of the physics. and the information it contains that book, that the environmental “cri-
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