Meaning & use

Consilience

noun·Advanced

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The agreement or convergence of evidence and conclusions from independent, unrelated sources or fields of study.

See it in a sentence

The theory gained credibility through consilience, as genetics, geology, and anatomy all pointed to the same conclusion.

Biologist E. O. Wilson popularized consilience as a way of unifying knowledge across the sciences and humanities.

A note on using this word

The term was coined by philosopher William Whewell in 1840 and later revived by E. O. Wilson in his 1998 book Consilience.

Words with a similar meaning

convergenceconcurrence

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Words with an opposite meaning

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