[Fis] Wilsonian Consilience

Hello, FISers. This is my first post. I am basically an ecologist; retired now, but I occasionally teach an entry-level biology course at Olympic College here in Bremerton, Washington. I've been reading this forum for quite some time, always happy to find such good material � too good, actually, to pick the right place to make a relevant contribution. However, Pedro�s agitation toward a sort of �consilience of accord� -- favoring Wilsonian consilience, perhaps � prompts me to recall the unusual days of the 1960s.
 
My graduate education was taken in the 1960s, and it had a backdrop of the �International Biological Program� (IBP), which was inspired by the ecumenical success of the International Geophyisical Year (IGY) of the 1950s. This timeframe comprises the years of Odum�s ecological stability principle (1953), MacArthur�s pathways analysis using Shannon-Weaver formulae (1955), Margalef�s expansion of that into complexity of choices (1958), and the follow-on work of Pielou (1966), Preston (1969), Lewontin (1969), et al. As I recall it, this IGY/IBS interlude was ripe with Wilsonian consilience. It was a friendly time to bring out fresh ideas, sometimes too fresh for easy digestion, but it still caught the spirit of openness and adventure that seemed to be part of America�s so-called �Spiritual Wakening.�

In my opinion, all that excess and fluff of wild speculation, combined with a loosening of peer reviews and a relaxed Occam�s Razor, brought forward creative juices that flowed from the well of Wilsonian consilience. However, it would be easy enough to argue that consilience had nothing to do with it.
 
It was a fun time to be educated, but nostalgia is dangerous. I would like to know if anyone else experienced any of this kind of supposed consilience from the IGY/IBS years.
 
Best to all, Richard Emery
Received on Fri Sep 24 21:56:19 2004