Thursdays: 1:30 – 3:00 | Oct. 17 to Nov. 14
Location: Zoom
Instructor: Eric Simon | Facilitator: Amanda Marsh

J – Nature as the Consilience of Science and Art: An Ongoing Exploration

Consilience is the principle that truth can be found when multiple, independent lines of evidence converge on a common answer. Since the 19th century, our understanding of the natural world has benefited from the consilience of science and art. Over many semesters, we will use this guiding principle in an ongoing discussion of history’s greatest scientists and artists, including Alexander von Humboldt, Charles Darwin, John James Audubon, Frederic Edwin Church, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and others. This semester will focus on the art and science of John James Audubon as he sought to describe every bird in his newly formed and adopted country of America.

Eric Simon, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Biology and Health Science at New England College, where he teaches introductory biology, human biology, and tropical marine biology. Dr. Simon has also taught a series of international travel courses, including field trips to Belize, the Galapagos, Tanzania, Cuba, the Amazon River, and Patagonia. For a full bio, see our website at LINEC.org.