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One Giant Leap. Review Of: Consilience: the Unity of Knowledge by Edward O Portland State University PDXScholar Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations Institute for Sustainable Solutions 6-1-1999 One giant leap. Review of: Consilience: the Unity of Knowledge by Edward O. Wilson Robert Costanza Portland State University Follow this and additional works at: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/iss_pub Part of the Sustainability Commons Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Citation Details Costanza, R. 1999. One giant leap. Review of: Consilience: the Unity of Knowledge by Edward O. Wilson. BioScience 49:487-488. This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible: [email protected]. Books Onegiantleap Consilience:TheUnity that all tangible phe- ofKnowledge. Edward nomena,fromthebirth O.Wilson.Knopf,New ofstarstotheworkings York, 1998. 332 pp. of social institutions, $26.00 (ISBN 0-679- are based on material 45077-7cloth). processesthatareulti- matelyreducible,how- “Consilience,”accord- everlongandtortuous ingtoWebster’sdictio- the sequences, to the nary, is “a leaping laws of physics” (p. together.”BiologistEd- 266). Deconstruction- wardO.Wilson’slatest istsandpostmodernists, book,bythattitle, at- inthisview,aremerely temptsagrandsynthe- gadflies,whoarenone- sis, or “leaping to- theless useful to keep gether,”ofourcurrent the “real” scientists state of knowledge by honest. Wilson takes “linkingfactsandfact- pains topoint outthe basedtheoryacrossdis- centralityofthereduc- ciplinestocreateacom- tionistapproach,from mon groundwork for a full chapter on its explanation”andapre- rootsintheEnlighten- dictionofwhereweare menttoseparatechap- headed.Itisatourde ters on its use in the forcebyoneofourage’s natural sciences, psy- greatestscientists—one chology,genetics,evo- ofthefewwhopossess lution, the social sci- thedepthandbreadth ences, and ethics and of knowledge to even religion. He starts the attemptthetask. natural sciences chap- Afterabriefintroductorychapter ofthemindhasalwaysbeenand ter(chapter4)withvividandheart- onhowtheauthor’spersonalintel- alwayswillbetheattemptedlink- felt descriptions of the scientific lectual journey brought him to be ageof the sciences and humani- methoditselfandwhatittakestobe passionatelyinterestedintheques- ties. The ongoing fragmentation agoodscientist(“brightenoughto tionofconsilience,thebookisneatly ofknowledgeandresultingchaos seewhatneedstobedone,butnotso inphilosophyarenotreflections summarized(bothincontentandin oftherealworldbutartifactsof bright as to suffer boredom doing tone)inthefirstparagraphofchap- scholarship.Thepropositions of it”;p.58).Alongtheway,Wilson ter2: theoriginalEnlightenmentarein- alsoprovidesofteninsightfulcom- creasingly favored by objective mentsonthefundamentalproblems YouwillseeatoncewhyIbelieve evidence,especiallyfromthenatu- inthevariousdisciplines thathave thattheEnlightenmentthinkersof ralsciences.(p.8) prevented or hindered consilience. the seventeenth and eighteenth Forexample,henotesthattheweak- centuries got it mostly right the The book fleshes out and defends nesses of conventional economic first time.Theassumptions they these propositions with numerous theory“canbesummarizedintwo madeofalawfulmaterialworld, examplesfromthenaturalsciences, labels: Newtonian and hermetic. theintrinsicunityofknowledge, andthepotentialofindefinitehu- thesocialsciences,andthehumani- Newtonian,becauseeconomictheo- manprogressaretheoneswestill ties. Wilson takes an unabashedly rists aspire to find simple, general takemostreadilyintoourhearts, logical positivist and reductionist lawsthatcoverallpossibleeconomic sufferwithout,andfindmaximally approach to science and to con- arrangements...hermetic—that is, rewarding through intellectual silience, arguing that “the central sealedofffromthecomplexitiesof advance. The greatest enterprise ideaoftheconsilienceworldviewis humanbehaviorandtheconstraints June1999 487 imposed by the environment” (p. Theconsilienceforwhichweare willmakeitavaluableadditionto 197). reallysearching,Ibelieve,isamore thelibraryofanysustainableagri- Scholarsfromacrosstheacademic balanced and pluralistic kind of culturalresearcheroreducator.The spectrum will find much food for “leapingtogether,”oneinwhichthe firstsectioncontainsthreeexcellent thought, discussion, and disagree- naturalandsocialsciencesandthe chaptersthattogetherasksomeun- mentinallthebook’schapters.Al- humanitiesallcontributeequitably. comfortable questions and chal- thoughthereisprobablybroadagree- A science that is truly trans- lengethereader’sthinkingaboutthe mentthatintegratingthecurrently disciplinary and multiscale, rather role ofpeoplein theenvironment. fragmentedsciencesandhumanities thaneitherreductionisticorholistic, Thebookendswithasynthesisthat is agoodidea, manywill disagree is,infact,evolving,butIthinkitwill addressesthebasicquestionsofthe with Wilson’s neo-Enlightenment, be much more sophisticated and book:Canwe“learn”ourwaytoa reductionistprescription.Theprob- multifacetedinitsviewofthecom- moresustainableagriculture?Andif lem is that the type of consilience plex world in which we live, the so,whatdoesittake? envisionedbyWilsonwillnotbea natureof“truth,”andthepotential Facilitating Sustainable Agricul- real“leapingtogether”ofthenatu- forhuman“progress”thantheEn- ture isnotjustanothersustainable ralsciences,thesocialsciences,and lightenment thinkers of the seven- agriculturebookthatishungupon the humanities. Rather, he sees a teenthandeighteenthcenturiescould agriculture’s changingstructure or totalvictorybythenaturalsciences everhaveimagined. itsdependenceonfossilfuels,chemi- andthereductionistapproachingen- cals,andpesticides.Itprobes,tries eral.Thereare,however,severalwell- ROBERTCOSTANZA toanswer,probesagain,andoften knownproblemswiththestrictre- CenterforEnvironmentalScience, admitslackofconclusionsbecause ductionist approach to science BiologyDepartment,and sustainableagricultureis,afterall, (Williams1997),andseveralofits InstituteforEcologicalEconomics aboutpeople.Peopledefyquantifi- contradictionsshowupinthebook UniversityofMaryland cation,andso,perhaps,doestheir Solomons,MD20688-0038 itself. environment. The book has many Wilson recognizes that the real faults,someadmittedtobytheau- issueinachievingconsilienceisone Referencescited thors.Itslargesthurdle,forme,at ofscaling—thatis,howunderstand- WilliamsN.1997.Biologistscutreductionist least,wastheextensiveuseofsocio- ingis transferredacrossthemulti- approachdowntosize. Science277:476– logicaljargon.Asanagronomist,I tudeofspatialandtemporalscales, 477. struggledwithmanyofthecoined fromquarkstotheuniverseandev- words,butIassumemysocial-sci- erythinginbetween.Butheseemsto THEHUMANFACTORIN encecolleagueshavejustasmuchof fall back on the overly simplistic SUSTAINABLEAGRICULTURE aproblemwithagronomiclingoin reductionistapproachtodoingthis— books pertaining to agronomic is- thatifweunderstandphenomenaat FacilitatingSustainableAgriculture: suesofsustainability. theirmostdetailedscale,wecansim- Participatory Learning and Adap- Thebookstartswithanintroduc- ply“addup”inlinearfashionfrom tiveManagementinTimesofEnvi- torychapterbytheeditorsthatleads there togetthe behavior atlarger ronmental Uncertainty. Niels G. thereaderintothedeepwatersen- scales.Althoughhestatesthat“the RölingandM.AnnemarieE.Wage- compassedinthebookbydefining greatestchallengetoday,notjustin makers, eds. Cambridge University whatis meantbysustainable agri- cellbiologyandecologybutinallof Press,Cambridge,UK.1998.318pp. culture andthedivergent opinions science,istheaccurateandcomplete $85.00(ISBN0-521-58174-5cloth). surrounding definitions ofsustain- descriptionofcomplexsystems”(p. ability. Anyone who has followed 85),heputsasidesomeofthemain FacilitatingSustainableAgriculture thewritingsofJulesPrettywillap- findingsfromthestudyofcomplex is a major revision of the papers preciatehisdeepinsights,expressed systems—that scaling in adaptive, froma1993workshopatthe15th inthesecondchapter,abouttheles- livingsystems is neither linear nor CongressoftheEuropeanRuralSo- sonslearnedfrompoliciesatwork. easy, and that “emergent proper- ciologicalSociety.Althoughthees- Hischapteraloneisworththeprice ties,”whichareunpredictablefrom senceofmanyofthepresentationsat ofthebook.Prettyevengetsintothe thesmallerscalealone,areimpor- this workshop remains, thepapers issue of sustainable intensification tant.Andalthoughheacknowledges were modified and updatedas the ofagriculture,atermrecentlypopu- ontheonehandthatanalysisand bookevolved.Theresultantbookis larizedbytheWorldBanktointro- synthesis,reductionismandholism, aworkinprogressinwhichtheedi- ducetheconceptofmakingsustain- areasinseparableasbreathingout tors pointoutthe“loose ends”of ableagriculturemoreproductive. andbreathingin,Wilsonglossesover sustainableagriculture.Overall,this The third chapter, by James thedifficulty ofactuallydoingthe bookprovidesafascinatingandus- Woodhill and Röling, has the in- synthesis in complex adaptivesys- able perspective by examining the triguingtitle,“Thesecondwingof temsandthenecessity of studying implications of ecologically sound theeagle:thehumandimensionin and understanding phenomena at agricultureforlandusersandother learning our wayto more sustain- multiplescalessimultaneously,rather stakeholders. able futures.” This chapter brings thanreducing themtothelaws of Itistheorganizationofthebook into play the basic premise of the physics. andtheinformationitcontainsthat book,thattheenvironmental“cri- 488 BioScienceVol.49No.6.
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