Darwin's Bridge: Uniting the Humanities and Sciences explores the meaning of consilience and considers the unity of human evolution, human nature, social dynamics, art, and narrative. The term "consilience" in its modern usage was first established by co-editor Edward O. Wilson in his 1998 book, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. Wilson's original thesis had two parts: that nature forms a unitary order of causal forces, hierarchically organized, and that scientific knowledge, because it delineates nature, also forms a unitary order, providing a unity of knowledge across a variety of fields. Bringing together cutting-edge scientists and scholars across this range, this volume gives an expert account of consilience and makes it possible to see how far we have come toward unifying knowledge about the human species, what major issues are still in contention, and which areas of research are most likely to produce further progress. The essays in Darwin's Bridge raise and give substantial answers to questions such as: What is the precise trajectory of human evolution? What were the main factors driving the evolution of the human brain and human motivational system? How closely does life among contemporary hunter-gatherers mirror conditions of ancestral life? In what ways have genes and culture co-evolved, reciprocally influencing one another? How does selection at the level of individuals interact with selection among groups? How complete and adequate are our current models of human nature? How well do these models integrate ideas about human universals, individual identity, and specific cultures? How well can we now delineate the causal chains leading from elementary principles of evolutionary biology to specifically human forms of social organization, individual identity, and imaginative culture? Are human proclivities to make and consume works of art by-products of adaptations, or are they themselves adaptations? Can evolutionary thinking guide us in giving close analytic and explanatory attention to individual works of art?
Show moreDarwin's Bridge: Uniting the Humanities and Sciences explores the meaning of consilience and considers the unity of human evolution, human nature, social dynamics, art, and narrative. The term "consilience" in its modern usage was first established by co-editor Edward O. Wilson in his 1998 book, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. Wilson's original thesis had two parts: that nature forms a unitary order of causal forces, hierarchically organized, and that scientific knowledge, because it delineates nature, also forms a unitary order, providing a unity of knowledge across a variety of fields. Bringing together cutting-edge scientists and scholars across this range, this volume gives an expert account of consilience and makes it possible to see how far we have come toward unifying knowledge about the human species, what major issues are still in contention, and which areas of research are most likely to produce further progress. The essays in Darwin's Bridge raise and give substantial answers to questions such as: What is the precise trajectory of human evolution? What were the main factors driving the evolution of the human brain and human motivational system? How closely does life among contemporary hunter-gatherers mirror conditions of ancestral life? In what ways have genes and culture co-evolved, reciprocally influencing one another? How does selection at the level of individuals interact with selection among groups? How complete and adequate are our current models of human nature? How well do these models integrate ideas about human universals, individual identity, and specific cultures? How well can we now delineate the causal chains leading from elementary principles of evolutionary biology to specifically human forms of social organization, individual identity, and imaginative culture? Are human proclivities to make and consume works of art by-products of adaptations, or are they themselves adaptations? Can evolutionary thinking guide us in giving close analytic and explanatory attention to individual works of art?
Show moreForeword by Alice Dreger
Introduction: Joseph Carroll
Part I. Transforming Our Vision of the Human Story
Chapter 1. Edward O. Wilson, "The Meaning of Human Existence"
Part II. The Evolution of Human Sociality
Chapter 2. Christopher Boehm, "Bullies: Redefining the Human
Free-Rider Problem"
Chapter 3. Herbert Gintis, "The Structure and Evolution of
Morality: Public and Private Persona"
Chapter 4. Henry Harpending & Nathan Harris, "Human Kinship as a
Green Beard"
Chapter 5. Michael Rose, "Darwinian Evolution of Free Will and
Spiritual Experience"
Part III. Ancient Markings
Chapter 6. John Hawks, "Neandertal Humanities"
Chapter 7. Ellen Dissanayake, "Mark-Making as a Human Behavior"
Part IV. Integrative Psychology
Chapter 8. Barbara Oakley, "Consilience through the Integration of
Engineering and Social Science"
Chapter 9. Dan P. McAdams, "From Actor to Agent to Author: Human
Evolution and the Development of Personality"
Part V. A Biocultural Perspective on Literature
Chapter 10. Catherine Salmon, "What Do Romance Novels,
Pro-Wrestling, and Mack Bolan Have in Common? Consilience and the
Pop Culture of Storytelling"
Chapter 11. Mathias Clasen, "Terrifying Monsters, Malevolent
Ghosts, and Evolved Danger-Management Architecture: A Consilient
Approach to Horror Fiction"
Chapter 12. Joseph Carroll, Jonathan Gottschall, John Johnson, &
Daniel Kruger, "Agonistic Structure in Canonical British Novels of
the Nineteenth Century"
Chapter 13. Brian Boyd, "Experiments with Experience: Consilient
Multilevel Explanations of Art and Literature"
Part VI. A Challenge
Chapter 14. Massimo Pigliucci, "The Limits of Consilience and the
Problem of Scientism"
Afterwords
David Sloan Wilson
Jonathan Gottschall
Joseph Carroll is Curators' Professor of English at the University
of Missouri-St. Louis. His books include Evolution and Literary
Theory, Literary Darwinism, Reading Human Nature, and (co-authored)
Graphing Jane Austen. He produced an edition of Darwin's Origin of
Species. He is the leading figure in the movement known as
"literary Darwinism," that is, the effort to integrate evolutionary
social science and literary
scholarship.
Dan P. McAdams is the Henry Wade Rogers Professor of Psychology and
Chair of the Psychology Department at Northwestern University. His
research focuses on personality development across the human life
course. Most recently, he is the author of The Redemptive Self:
Stories Americans Live By and George W. Bush and the Redemptive
Dream: A Psychological Portrait.
Edward O. Wilson is Curator in Entomology and University Research
Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. He has received more than
100 awards for his research and writing, including the U.S.
National Medal of Science, the Crafoord Prize and two Pulitzer
Prizes in non-fiction. He is considered one of the world's foremost
biologists and naturalists today.
"Darwin's Bridge is a vibrant collection of essays on controversial
topics from the origins of human intelligence and the sociobiology
of Shakespearean sonnets to whether it makes sense to unite the
sciences and humanities. This mind-expanding book does more than
any other to answer Wilson's seductive and important call for an
evolutionary psychology of the humanities."
--Richard Wrangham, author of Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us
Human
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