The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox: Mending the Gap Between Science and the Humanities
Though this final book is not the most accessible of Stephen Jay Gould's  meditations on science and culture, it is a complex and revealing look  at one of the late paleontologist's great passions: the unity of human  endeavor. The titular hedgehog and fox refer to the classic dichotomy of  persistence opposed to agility of thought, which Gould uses as a  backbone in comparing, contrasting, and balancing science and the  humanities. Unlike many scientists, he does not consider humanities (nor  religion) to be inferior to his discipline. Drawing liberally from  Renaissance and Scientific Revolution sources, Gould shows that the  perceived differences in the two cultures are mostly false. Readers of  E.O. Wilson'sConsiliencewill find many similarities here, though Gould emphatically rejects  Wilson's conclusion that reductionism is an appropriate way to unite the  two cultures and offers examples of when such an approach might fail.If we discover that a majority of human cultures have  favored infanticide under certain conditions, and that such a practice  arose for good Darwinian reasons, shall we then claim that we have  resolved the question of the rightness of such a practice with a  "yea"?This volume is presented by its editor almost unchanged from the  manuscript Gould had finished shortly before his death. The result is a  book with such unedited detail that its dense blend of history and  philosophy is at times overwhelmingly difficult. Nevertheless, Gould's  deeply held conviction that human understanding comes fromallour cultural efforts shines through.--Therese Littleton