To be honest I feel like we need to discuss three key concepts that will benefit all of us going into the future: history, consilience, and adaptability.
First, the concept of history, not just as a social science, but as a way of viewing life. It’s looking at the past to find a way to shape our future. By studying history we can learn how to improve our current sustainability efforts. If we can improve sustainability, we will be able to greatly benefit our lives. When we study history, we can then apply our knowledge to other fields such as biology, business, physics, political science, English etc. The world has faced similar problems across different generations. Over two hundred years ago, we dealt with smallpox and pollution. Now we deal with the Ebola virus and our regulation of nuclear weapons in foreign countries who may not have our best interests at heart. The Ebola virus did not exist 200 years ago. In the Colonies there was smallpox. It was responsible for the deaths of many Loyalists and Patriots, but, we dealt with it. We eventually discovered a vaccine and smallpox is not a major problem today. Ebola will go the same way. The use of nuclear weapons should be severely regulated. They should never be used for any reason, regardless of an intent of peace.
Consilience is, as E.O Wilson stated, a theory to explain everything. In history and science, it can be used to converge seemingly unrelated subjects, concepts or ideas. For example, by using Consilience, we can witness a link between history, political science and biology which would be beneficial to creating a vaccine for the Ebola virus. It is possible, and necessary, to link history, political science and English. These three subjects allow us to acquire the essential tools to benefit our society. If we understand that everything has a common bond, a common link, we can understand how to improve our world in the future.
Adaptability is being able to make any situation, good or bad, work to your advantage. How can we benefit ourselves and the people we care about if we don’t adapt? We are able to study physics, biology, and chemistry to find solutions to our current problems, to find a way to adapt to change. When we combine our knowledge of natural sciences, with our understanding of social sciences and humanities, we become more than capable of solving the greatest mysteries of our time. We need to understand that religion has a link with science, that physics has a link with art, and history has a link with engineering.
There are numerous ways to combine everything we study, infinitely more than I have included here.
