This past weekend, I attended an intense and very interesting conference in St. Louis on the topic of consilience (Consilience: Evolution in Biology, the Human Sciences and the Humanities). The term consilience in this context refers to the unification of knowledge in the sciences and humanities proposed by biologist Edward O. Wilson in his book by that name. Very roughly speaking, the idea is to find a bridge between the different areas of human knowledge and put them all on a common footing by looking at the social sciences and humanities in the light of the findings and methods of evolutionary biology, cognitive science, and other scientific fields. (It’s been a few years since I read Wilson’s book, so that definition is more my best understanding at the moment than it is a summation of his views. There is plenty more to say on what consilience means, and I intend to say it here in the near future.)
I learned a huge amount at the conference, both from the talks (20 talks in three days by a star-studded cast of scientists and humanists) and from the discussions over meals or drinks, and I met a lot of great people. I had hoped to blog from St. Louis as things unfolded, but my input channels were saturated (three pens ran out of ink, and I filled about a quarter of a Moleskine notebook with my notes), and I had no energy left for output. However, now that I’m back home, I plan to write about some of the individual presentations, the themes that appear when I look at the conference as a whole, and the concept of consilience overall. Watch this space!
