Throughout Interdisciplinarity, Joe Moran attempts to connect the multiple disciplines of knowledge that make up our world. While various different disciplines have a connection with each other, Moran believed that science was the key to uniting all of the different types of knowledge. In specific, biology was stressed to be the most important field of science that would interconnect the disciplines.
So why is biology so important? Well to start, it is one of the most important fields of study, because it is what makes up our body, as well as our environment. Edward O. Wilson was a huge advocate for science and biology, and its importance in seeing similarities in the disciplines. Wilson believed that there was a link between genetic evolution and cultural evolution.
Since all humans are born with biologically similar brains, the mind and it’s effects have to be a result of biological evolution. Neuroscience is important when considering the biological theory of everything. Studying the brain and its effects can tell us a lot, and since the evolution of culture progresses from memories and experiences of the past, culture can directly be paired with neurology and the sciences. Culture is defined as the customs, traditions, arts, and achievements of a specific group. The passing down of all of these aspects of culture heavily relies on memory and consciousness. Therefore, scrutiny of the brain and it’s parts can tell us a lot about culture, as well as literature. Lauren Slater includes neuroscience in her metaphorical memoir, Lying. In her surgical procedure she undergoes, her corpus callous is severed. I believe Slater includes this specific information about the brain and how it affects her life in order to give a scientific explanation for her childhood and how her past can be explained and her life improved, by a simple neurological surgical procedure. If Slater can do this for her past, it might be possible in the future, with far more scientific findings, to analyze culture scientifically, via a biological study of members of a culture.
Treading back to Wilson, a theory of consilience was highly considered. Consilience is the idea that separate and unrelated sources of information can be presented together to make strong conclusions. Interdisciplinary in a way is a form of consilience, seeing how the combination of multiple disciplines can attribute for the learning of new knowledge. We see consilience in About a Mountain by John D’Agata, as well as the podcast Serial, by Sarah Koenig. In both of these forms of creative nonfiction, Koenig and D’Agata act as skilled writers, as well as researchers. As they add their research contributions to their novel/podcast, they take research information from various different disciplines and combine them in order to make a conclusion. In About a Mountain, D’Agata uses his abundance of scientific information, as well as political and social research in the hopes of making a statement about society and the world that we live in. Koenig chooses to include observations from many different sources, and uses them to her advantage in telling Adnon’s story, and her attempt to prove his innocence.
As of right now, a theory of everything has not been achieved and the entirety of disciplines have yet to be connected. It may never happen, but as long as experts from each discipline continue to collaborate their ideas, it is inevitable that new perspectives will be added, and knowledge of each discipline will continue to grow.