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In this seminal and ambitious book, professor EO Wilson works to show the need and lays the foundation for the integration of the sciences and the humanities -- a principle he calls consilience. Wilson sees the soloed nature of knowledge as an error of modern and postmodern academic institutions. Then this Harvard professor points the way toward a more holistic view. It is gratifying to see this vision come alive in books such as The Happiness Hypothesis and the works of Malcolm Gladwell, as well as many progressive organizations and insitutions.

Wilson sees four major areas of study that need to be integrated: (1) Environmental Policy; (2) Ethics; (3) Social Science; (4) Biology. He makes the case for a return to valuing empirical scientific research as a key to this integration, and he sees postmodern relativism as the primary threat. He defines science as " the organized systematic enterprise that gathers knowledge about the world and condense the knowledge into testable laws and principles."

He further says "the love of complexity without reductionism makes art; the love of complexity with reductionism makes science;" and additionally, Wilson says "science needs the intuition and metaphorical power of the arts, and the arts need the fresh blood of science." Despite his loathing of postmodern relativism he sees the need for criticism by stating that "new ideas are commonplace, and almost always wrong." Neither is Wilson a blind advocate for science, and he states clearly that new scientific discoveries lead to new challenges. Thus the need for an interplay between art and science.

Wilson sees original scientific discovery as a key to progress, and he celebrates researchers who venture out (for the chances of success are always slim). The qualities he sees as necessary for this journey include the possession of great knowledge and the courage to follow obsessive quests. Within this voyage of discovery, Wilson points to the study of complex systems as the most important focus and pressing need.

The social sciences are more complex than the physical sciences according to Wilson, and he laments the lack of interaction by these two camps. Then he goes on for a good bit to criticize sociologists, with good reason. Economists also draw his fire for arrogance and overly simplistic models that, for example, considers the natural environment as an "externality" to an economic system. What Wilson does see the need for models that are simple, widely applicable, congruent with other disciplines, and predictive.

This review just scratches the surface of the awesome book. Throughout the pages EO Wilson expounds on observations, hypotheses, theories and laws that cover both the sciences and the humanities. And he closes the book with an impassioned plea to work toward solutions to limit the destruction of our natural environment.

The principles of consilience are applicable across most organizations and disciplines. In my work as a marketing consultant I see soloed specialties separated by the competition for capital, budgets and status. I hear this familiar lament from colleagues in other disciplines and human endeavors. EO Wilson points the way toward a better, a more consilient, future.

Consilience is a watershed book and provocative read. A singular achievement.

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Consilience literally means "a jumping together" of knowledge, almost implying a mystical aha! moment when everything connects to everything else and it all makes perfect sense. But no Buddhist holy man will lead us to this place, according to E.O. Wilson. It will be the scientist, leveraging what we've learned about genes, heredity, the physical basis of mind, and gene-culture co-evolution to assemble a unified theory of human knowledge. Using methods that have worked so well in decoding the natural world, scientists and their allies will link the social sciences, arts, philosophy, ethics, and even religion into one coherent knowledge base built on observable, repeatable experimental models.

As Wilson points out, the unity of all knowledge is at this time more metaphysical yearning than scientific fact. We've barely begun to map genes to specific behaviors; we're only starting to understand how the brain and body generate a mind; and hard historical data about how we evolved into this particular configuration is spotty at best. The endeavor seems to be about where America was in 1700: a few promising toeholds on the continent, large gaps between them, and vast tracts of unexplored territory.

Wilson wants to guide us through the wilderness, and, like many prophets, he takes his share of abuse. The book seems to have become a litmus test for how willing people are to let the natural sciences encroach on other fields of intellectual endeavor, and several reviews posted here offer pugnacious critiques of the limits to Wilson's approach. Some of the significant objections to his brand of consilience are:

Flawed methods. The skill of good science is to pose questions in ways that make answers possible, which is to effectively reduce the complexities of the world to problems that can be solved. While the scientific method has led to huge advances in understanding the natural world, it's questionable whether philosophy, art, religion or day-to- day living will yield up their secrets through this process. Many respected thinkers argue that applying scientific reductionism to the complexities of human existence leads us down false and constraining paths. Real progress comes when we're rigorous but not reductive in our search for truth.

A bloodless humanism. Both the Greeks and the Christians proposed to fix human flaws by attempting to eliminate in people what made them human in the first place. Wilson's scientific humanism, which would have us go forward based on empirical knowledge and a disinterested search for truth, is another tautological ascent. People recently descended from Paleolithic tribes don't find it congenial to think like world-class scientists. In fact, whenever rationalist thought gains political ascendancy, large masses of humanity feel compelled to daub themselves with blue mud and dance around the campfire. Scientists who try to take away our funk and magic will get tossed on the campfire too.

Political pitfalls. Suppose the linchpin activity of Wilson's consilience - identifying which genes trigger a specific behavioral response - actually gets accomplished. Do we then abdicate human agency to the keepers of the genetic code? Do molecular biologists become the new shamans, and scientific humanism the new orthodoxy? As Isaiah Berlin and others have pointed out, when grand schemas are operating, the rights of individuals tend to get trampled. Communism and Christianity should have taught us to beware the bearers of the One Big Truth.

On the other hand, an infusion of empiricism may damp down the need for ritual, magic and blood sacrifice that still drives so much of human behavior. Scientific humanism, resting on firmer intellectual foundations that either religion or political science, may prove to be wiser and more far seeing in the administration of human affairs. If we have more knowledge about the genetic basis of our humanity, maybe we'll have a greater ability to steer our cultures in positive directions.

Wilson's scheme for linking the social sciences and the arts to the natural sciences may not be useful or possible in all its details. Maybe group behaviors will prove too complex to tie to specific genes, or we won't want to make PET scans of our brain while we read a poem or listen to a symphony. But he does articulate several urgent and important tasks that can move humanity forward.

-using our DNA to flag or cure disease. This will also spur political acceptance of scientific values because of the tangible benefits being delivered.

-decoding the physical basis of the embodied mind, so we better understand how thoughts and emotions drive our behaviors.

-deciphering the social and psychological foundations of the religious impulse so we can construct empirical ethical systems and finally pull free from the intellectual muck of primitive monotheism.

Wilson deserves credit for being bold and provocative in his thinking, for brilliantly condensing so much science, history and philosophy into such a brief space, and for presenting his arguments in lucid sentences that rise on occasion to the level of poetry. While people may pick at the particulars, many of us can resonate to his central exhortation. Let's use the tools of science to gain more control over our future than intuition, superstition, demagoguery, magical thinking, and theism have given us over our past.