Short History Of Nearly Everything Analysis

Wilson stated that “the love of complexity without reductionism makes art; the love of complexity with reductionism makes science.” While Consilience and Life is a Miracle converse over the idea of unifying knowledge and the practicality of it, they each have an obvious standpoint on the topic and it is linked to the study of how the universe was created and the theories surrounding creation. E. O. Wilson takes a unique vantage point as a scientist and Wendell Berry does the same from the opposite side, as a writer. Bryson’s Short History of Nearly Everything and our conversations in breakout over the topic of where humanity and the universe came from combining the humanities with the sciences. Wilson believes that ultimate consilience between …show more content…
Whether that is achieved through reduction, synthesis, self-expression, or myths, there is an answer demanded by humanity. That is the reason for the many myths that sprinkle our culture and for the theories of how our world began. Who we are is a question that has daunted us, much like the question of where did we come from. Wilson attempts to answer the question of who we are by breaking it down into the components that physically make us into a being. The problem with this approach is that he cannot break down the mind; which has ultimately given us our identity. In the Short Story of Nearly Everything Bryson does not try to break down humanity into its individual parts, instead he approaches it and gives the facts that make the unfathomable make more sense. He speaks eloquently and heightens the reader’s interest, thus making it relate to the humanities from a literary standpoint. The use of numbers and reduction of the universe allows the reader to comprehend, which is what Wilson hopes reduction will do, however, Wilson wants to use this tactic for all disciplines. Doing so will not work and he gets close to admitting it in some passages, but does not come forth and confess that he understands it’s impracticality. Humanity has justified their existence through the use of myths as previously stated. Michael Shermer mentions in his TedTalk “The Pattern Behind Self-Deception” that all organisms are hardwired to find patterns in the world around them. Wilson is reducing everything around him down to a simple pattern, disregarding the fact that when everything is reduced to a simple formula, life loses its innate preciousness. Berry desires to not break down the world around us and to accept it by living in the moment. Berry, a narrator, believes that Wilson is both overconfident and is trying to eradicate the humanities and for those reasons he has a grudge against Wilson. Bryson, while he does not have someone attacking his every