Finance: How could it not encompass all knowledge?
            
             Edward O. Wilson makes a multitude of arguable assumptions throughout his writings for consilience. The word itself is arguable if you ask my word processor's spell checking application. His arguments regarding economics, however, seem to be solid. Wilson proposes that economics, being the closest of the social sciences in nature to the natural sciences, is fundamentally flawed due to its lack of consilience. I was pleasantly surprised to read his theories regarding my discipline because he outlines some very valid points. His work does not propose any groundbreaking thinking as to how the consilience-related flaws of economics might be reconciled, but he does an effective job at pointing out those flaws. I believe that Finance, being a functional component of economics, does fit into the framework of consilience. The idea of consilience is far from being embraced and practiced in the real world, but economics will fit into the framework if consilience ever progresses past the idea stage.
             Wilson's assertions regarding economics are based upon some underlying assumptions about the development of man's psyche. The foremost assumption regarding consilience and economics is that culture evolves over time in much the same manner as genetics. Wilson believes that the evolution of culture is guided by a set of epigenetic rules that are prescribed to individuals by their genes at birth. Epigenetic rules are the neural pathways and regularities in cognitive development by which the individual mind assembles itself. The mind grows throughout an individual's development by absorbing parts of the existing culture around it. The selections of the culture are guided by the epigenetic rules inherited by the individual brain.
             Wilson's other assumption that the economics/consilience relationship is contingent upon is that culture is reconstructed each gener...