Bridging the gap between the sciences and humanities

It is at the intersections of the different great branches of knowledge that actual human dilemmas occur. Such knowledge-intersections "offer [a] prospect of characterizing human nature with precision ... [and provide] a key to human self-understanding". The more obvious examples of such borderline disciplines include cognitive neuroscience, behavioural genetics, evolutionary biology and environmental science. However, a different individual might also have in mind other specific examples, such as the way in which an understanding of music have offered a physicist or a mathematician an unexpected insight.

"Consilience" - the concept of a unity of knowledge at the junction between sciences and humanities - is important in order to allow human nature to be defined more scientifically.  Humanity cannot be defined through culture, for this is merely its by-product.  Rather, human nature is derived from "inherited, prepared and counter-prepared learning," a gathering of epigenetic processes, a genetically-linked process of mental development.

Short, applicable examples from day-to-day living may well provide an essence of this idea. The process of colour-recognition among humans, for example, seems to have evolved along the same neural and molecular progression throughout the world. On a similar note, the human brain gives the impression of being most aroused by particular alpha wave patterns, as well as by elements possessing a degree of redundancy.  This is reflected, for example, in ancient Egyptian and Central American glyphs, Japanese reisho calligraphy and in Indian Punjabi characters. The field of art is able to amalgamate epigenetic rules of biology, such as maximum brain stimulation and complex responses, with visual impetus for power and elegance. There is no doubt that further investigations into the unconscious, or subconcious, links between biology and art would be very fruitful.  What is considered beautiful in a human face also appears to be embedded within our genetic code: when identifying attractiveness, individuals from across cultures prefer a subset of specific facial features, all of which seem to indicate juvenescence and high reproductive potential.  On a similar note, it is suggested that the universal taboo of incest has co-evolved with whatever evolutionary constraint has been responsible for the neurobiological observation that two children living in close proximity for the first thirty months are de-sensitized to later sexual bonding. This particular biological phenomenon is called the Westermarck Effect, while similar occurrences can also be observed in non-human primates.  Perhaps the most remarkable of these epigenetic clues might lie in man's selection of living habitats. In general, human-beings given the choice, preferentially select areas overlooking parkland, situated next to water, having trees with low horizontal branches - Is it mere coincidence that these are areas characteristically similar to the African terrain where Man's evolutionary process began? 

The fields of biology, social sciences and humanities have started to uncover how human behaviour is linked to the biological processes embedded in our genetic code.  Scholars are called upon to shift their focus to such phenomena and to interlace these branches of learning. By taking "consilience" as the platform, humans may well be on the path to discovering the empirical basis for the most fundamental makeup of humanity.