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7 - Consilience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Marvin Zuckerman
Affiliation:
University of Delaware
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Summary

In nature hybrid species are usually sterile, but in science the reverse is often true. Hybrid subjects are often astonishingly fertile, whereas if a scientific discipline remains too pure it usually wilts.

(Crick, 1988, p. 150)

Wilson (1998) used the term consilience, defined as that quality of science that combines knowledge across disciplines, to create a common background of explanation. More complex levels of phenomena can be described in terms of simpler phenomena. Personality psychology extends from social phenomena and what we call “personality traits” at the most complex end down to genes and their variations at the simplest level as shown in Figure 7-1. Of course, there is nothing simple about the genome, and we have only the beginning of a science of molecular behavioral genetics. Wilson sees reductionism as the goal of science:

The cutting edge of science is reductionism, the breaking apart of nature into its natural constituents. … It is the search strategy employed to find points of entry into otherwise impenetrably complex systems. Complexity is what interests scientists in the end, not simplicity. Reductionism is the way to understand it. The love of complexity without reductionism makes art; the love of complexity with reductionism makes science. (pp. 58–59).

Personality constitutes a daunting challenge for this kind of reductionism. It can be analyzed in terms of distal to proximal influences along biological and social pathways as shown in Figure 7-1. Both pathways have their origins in evolutionary history.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2005

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  • Consilience
  • Marvin Zuckerman, University of Delaware
  • Book: Psychobiology of Personality
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511813733.008
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  • Consilience
  • Marvin Zuckerman, University of Delaware
  • Book: Psychobiology of Personality
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511813733.008
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Consilience
  • Marvin Zuckerman, University of Delaware
  • Book: Psychobiology of Personality
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511813733.008
Available formats
×