[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