Fig 1.
Updated April 2005. Original date July 2001
Abstract: Is industrial production relatively in decline? No, it is not. This note displays the evidence that since 1960, in the 6 largest economies of the world, industrial production has kept pace with total output. A section has been appended (April 2005) to update the statistics.
WoPEc - Working papers in economics - WUSTL July 2001 Paper in pdf form
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How can well-being or prosperity be measured? How can one group of people be compared with another in regard to those qualities? Of course, these measurements are not possible in any strict terms, but often official statistical tabulations of, typically, gross domestic product (GDP) per head of population, are used, generally without much in the way of caveat.
What has industrial production got to do with well-being and prosperity? Well, of course, there are what used to be called factories, usually in undesirable pockets of the country. But it is well known that this activity is in decline, and matters less and less.
So much so that the Industry Editor of a major financial newspaper could write: "There is no reason why Britain should not close its manufacturing capacity. But importing all manufactured goods would cause a huge current account headache".
This view flows from the frequently remarked, and correct, fact that industrial production accounts for an ever declining fraction of employment, and of GDP, the normal well-being indicator.
In the bibliography will be found references to two earlier working papers, in which it is shown that the standpoint quoted above is by no means confined to journalists, and in which an attempt is made to re-balance this perception. Although it is hoped that anyone reading those papers will notice that the author appreciates fully the enormous complexity of the matters being dealt with, he would not draw back from the bald statement which on re-reading is found in one of them: "Wealth is nothing but things". In other words, a measure of the production of things (including, of course, food) is the primary measure of well-being.
It is not intended here to go again over the ground of defending this view. It is hoped any one interested will go to the papers cited. The aim is to present a number of graphs which show that official indices of industrial production are quite closely aligned with those for GDP, over the very long period of the last 40 years. Although the author would contend that the production of things is the true measure of the distance in "well-being" which separates us from our pre-agricultural ancestors, and would maintain this even if it did not align with measures of GDP (both measures are full of ad hoc recipes and procedures), it is undeniably comforting that what are regarded as the primary and secondary measures more or less coincide. It gives a reassurance that those involved in the logically hopeless task of adding apples and pears have done an adequate job. It also may make it easier to convince an audience trained to despise the "material" that it is indeed the "material" which makes possible the thought and culture which are generally taken to be the essence of progress.
The proximate origin of this note is the fact of noticing, in one statistical compilation (see the bibliography) covering the countries of the European Union plus Japan and the USA, for the period 1960 to 2001, two tables giving annual percentage change in GDP and in industrial production, both in real terms. It also gives tables of imports and exports of goods but this served only to show that imbalances there, relative to total production, could be ignored in the present context.
The countries selected for the survey reported below were: USA, Japan, Germany, France, Italy and UK. As a first example, the "best" case of Italy is taken (Fig 1).
Fig 1.
The dark line is the real-terms GDP index for Italy. The value at 1995 is set at 100.
The coloured line is the index for industrial production. Since the base is arbitrary, the latter has been adjusted to minimise the squared distance, in percentage terms, of this line from the GDP line. It can be seen that the alignment of the two lines is in visual terms rather good. In particular, they happen to begin and end more or less together, over this period of nearly 40 years.
The next figure (Fig 2) is for the biggest economy, the USA.
Fig 2.
The alignment in Fig 2 is less close than in Fig 1, but in visual terms the fit is still reasonably good.
Fig 3 gives the same sort of graph for all countries other than the USA. Since precision is not appropriate in this context, the weightings used in the aggregation were done according to GDP at around the mid-point of the period.
Fig 3.
The fit is good up to 1990. The apparent departure at this date derives from the data for Germany and France.
At this stage, it can be stated that the measures of GDP and industrial production stay fairly well in step over the 40-year period, for the USA and for the aggregate of the other major contributors to the world economy. For one country, Italy, the alignment is near perfect.
The disaggregated data for countries other than the US and Italy show puzzling discrepancies. To show this, a different presentation is used, in which the percentage gap between the GDP and industrial production indices is plotted against time. Figure 4 repeats the above results for USA and ex-USA in this style.
Fig 4.
This display shows that not only is the general "goodness of fit" similar for the US and ex-US (the trend curves are quadratics), but that the detailed structure agrees astonishingly well also. Even the departure beginning at around 1993 can be seen as not differing greatly from previous departures which later "rectified" themselves.
Given the observation that the US line seems to start leading the ex-US one at around 1984, it may not be too fanciful to guess that the upward movement of the US curve from 1990 may lead both towards the zero-discrepancy axis. The word "astonishing" is used above, since it is difficult to envisage reasons why the statisticians of different countries should arrive at this result, given, as will be seen from the next figure (Fig 5), the (relatively) very large differences between the countries which make up the ex- US aggregate. And yet, the agreement with the US shown by their aggregated results seems too good to have been produced by chance.
Fig 5.
The reader should not strain too much to decipher this figure. The heavy line is the GDP-weighted aggregate of all data sets. The striking lower discrepancy on the left is due to Japan, whose line is markedly convex downwards. The UK traces almost a straight line from top left to bottom right. France is fairly similar. The main point is that US data follow the aggregate line quite well, which is the same as saying that, as has already been seen, the aggregated ex-US data do too (the US weight is less than half the total).
It may be concluded that the indices of industrial production produced by the different teams of statisticians do in general march in step with the GDP statistics produced by the same teams. Where the disaggregated data fail to do so might usefully spur the national teams concerned to find out why*.
The fact that there are constant direct or implied references to industrial decline, by journalists, politicians and academics seems to be due to the preoccupation of these classes with industrial employment, "value added", and GDP-fraction, all of which are in continual decline. The reason for those declines is, of course, quite obvious, namely the fact that the industrial sector is amenable to rapid improvements in productivity, so that more and more is produced by fewer and fewer. The GDP fraction of any sector is roughly the employment fraction of that sector (given that the incomes of those involved in all sectors are roughly the same), so industrial output can perfectly well go in step with GDP while constituting a continuously decreasing fraction of it in value added terms. To put it in another way, the industrial output gets relatively cheaper. One of the papers cited quotes Baumol as finding the "bleak picture" that the prices of services must get continuously relatively higher - the same observation made from the "glass is half empty" standpoint! The above is not intended to provide a proof of anything. It seems to the author to be virtually a tautology, i.e., not to require proof, to state that our well-being depends, not just to some extent, but entirely, on the production of things, so that if it had been found that industrial production indices did not keep pace with total welfare indices, the conclusion would rather be drawn that the ad hoc judgements and procedural recipes for producing the indices were in some way inadequate. Equally, those who think otherwise would be right to regard the fact that they do align rather well as not necessarily providing decisive support for the position advocated here.
However, it is hoped that the facts displayed above may at least convince everyone who reads them, to be sceptically alert, when they hear any allusion to "deindustrialisation" or industrial decline**.
* The extraordinary disparateness of disaggregated (national) relationships between GDP and industrial production is shown by the following tabulation of the ratio of GDP index to industrial production index for 1998 when each is set to 100 for 1960.
They are given in descending order of this ratio. The numbers are rounded to avoid giving an unwarranted appearance of precision :
| GDP | Ind | GDP/Ind | |
|---|---|---|---|
| UK | 250 | 190 | 1.3 |
| France | 340 | 270 | 1.2 |
| Germany | 290 | 260 | 1.1 |
| All-exUS | 360 | 330 | 1.1 |
| USA | 360 | 360 | 1.0 |
| Italy | 340 | 370 | 0.9 |
| All | 360 | 390 | 0.9 |
| Japan | 670 | 760 | 0.9 |
** By chance, on the day (19th July 2001) this note was posted, the national UK newspaper "Daily Mail" carried a story headlined, "Industrial UK edges closer to extinction"!
When the above note was prepared, the picture shown for five very advanced countries – the US, Japan, Germany, France and the UK – over the 40-year period from 1960, was that the statistical data for industrial production showed, contrary to both academic and journalistic loose talk, industrial output was not in decline or importance relative to services or to total GDP, but in fact had led in the first half of this period, and trailed somewhat in the second half, but could be said to have more or less kept up.
The present update followed as a result of heavy UK press coverage of the apparently imminent extinction of UK-owned car manufacture (MG Rover). The following letter appeared in the Financial Times on 12.4.2005:
"Sir, your coverage of the Rover story was admirably factual, and totally convincing in its comment, but I have a semantic bone to pick regarding the use of the word importance” in your authoritative editorial (“A tale of greed and gullibility”, April 9).
"You remark that “manufacturing output has grown by a third, but its relative importance has continued to shrink as services have grown by 85 percent”. The fraction of any good’s retail price that represents its original production cost is continually diminishing relative to the retail, transport, banking and other service costs involved in delivering it to the final customer, for the simple reason that innovation produces much faster savings in manufacturing and other material production than it can in services. This is in line with your observation that UK manufacturing production has gone up by 30 percent while the workforce has halved. But in your language, this would be described as a decline in the relative importance of the production of goods relative to services, oblivious of the fact that the services have no other purpose than to get the all-important goods from the producer to the purchaser. An extreme misuse of the word would be to say that air has zero relative importance because its price is zero.
"The danger of loose talk is shown by the fact that you go on to state that the UK benefits by being further down the road of service predominance than Germany or Italy, although you report elsewhere that the UK car industry is being saved and expanded by German, French, Japanese, and now possibly Chinese, intervention. In the end, our well-being depends on the things which emerge from the services, headed in real relative importance by the cheapest of them, air and water.
"Your word-processors should be adjusted to sound alarms whenever words like “less important” get anywhere near words to do with the production of goods. Walter Stanners"
Since the story was told was to some extent in terms of recent trends, it seemed useful to extend the 1960 to 2001 picture to the present, using the 2004 Autumn Review of Statistics of the European Commission. This includes projections to 2006.. The result is summarised in Fig. 6.
Fig 6.
The original 5 countries have been extended here to 17. The published data was reduced to numerical indices of industrial output and GDP, both normalised to 1 at year 1981, and the ratio of the first to the second plotted. The solid line at y=1 would represent a result where the industrial output index moved in exact step with the GDP index.
As was said above in relation to another graph, “the reader should not strain too much to decipher this figure”. The curve shooting upwards is for Ireland. At the other extreme, the UK occupies the same place as was remarked in the original note – an apparent falling off of industrial output in relation to GDP, ending up at the bottom rightmost point of the display.
In order to give the eye something to rest on, the curves for the US, Japan, Germany and Denmark are given in heavier red, black, blue and green, respectively.
The original note showed that for the chosen five countries in aggregate, and also for the US considered alone, the above graph would have shown industry leading for the 20 years from 1960 to 1980. And there was some indication (see also the upward trend for the US in Fig. 6 between 1992 and 2000) that the subsequent downward turn might be “rectified”.
In general, for those and similar countries, the new data does not convincingly support that tendency. Indeed, the US seems to be leading the way downwards. The Japanese data is missing for the most recent years, but very oddly, all things considered, is following a very US-like path. Most other advanced and large countries are at least showing signs of bottoming out. Germany is the odd-man-out here, with a quite pronounced return to what I consider to be the expected ratio=1 position.
The fact that there is no apparent pre-destiny in the US/UK/Japan trend, is shown (in addition to the German case) by the curves above the y=1 axis. Denmark, Sweden, Austria and Finland are small advanced countries, but no smaller than Belgium, Greece, and the Netherlands below the line.
The astonishing case of Ireland raises the question of trade balance. Ireland has a net trade surplus in goods of 25 % of GDP. Do its partners above the line share this characteristic, in smaller degree? The answer is no. There is in fact no systematic relationship between a country’s position as regards the parameter graphed in Fig. 6, and either the trade balance in goods or the current account balance.
The odd similarity between the US and Japan in the above graph makes the point. The US and Japan have a notable trade surplus and deficit, respectively. Germany, which is going strongly against the Japanese trend has, like it, a strong trade surplus.
My own belief is that the detail of the above graph is beyond explanation, except perhaps, as remarked in the original note, that there may be some factor lurking in the disparate and to some extent arbitrary methodologies used in calculating industrial output and GDP.
My original conclusion, that on a priori grounds, and contrary to much academic and journalistic comment, industrial production indices would be expected to keep pace with total welfare indices, remains intact.
Stanners, W. 1996. De-industrialisation, ewp-dev/9601001
Stanners, W. 1998. Abstractions, things, wealth, and deindustrialization, ewpmac/ 9804003
European Commission, 2000. European Economy No. 70
European Commission, Statistical Annex of European Economy - Autumn 2004
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Abstract. The notion of de-industrialisation arises from the fact that industrial
employment, having risen rapidly, is now in equally rapid decline. This paper presents
the view that agriculture and industry together form, and have always formed, a
"primary" sector which from the beginning, because of its inherent capacity for
productivity gains, has progressively freed labour for non-productive work. The
"industrial" revolution was really a "primary sector" (in the above sense) revolution.
There is no new phenomenon of de-industrialisation, merely a speeding up of a process
of labour-freeing from the primary sector, whose ever decreasing work force produces ever increasing output.
Paper in HTML form
Abstract. Economic theory is dominated by abstract structures. Underneath, there is no firm foundation. Above, there is a lack of rigorous confrontation with established fact. Basic theoretical concepts have no acknowledged definition. The apparatus of graphs, algebra and technical vocabulary are often vehicles for rhetoric rather than descriptions of truth. In this abstract world, it seems to be accepted without embarrassment that all opinions are possible, while adopting the style of science in delivering each conclusion as if it was a fact. The closest parallel is perhaps with theology, where also each practitioner presents his story as fact, but there are differing stories. This paper illustrates this theme, with particular reference to "deindustrialization".
It points out that it is tangible things which are the primary measure, literally the sine
qua non, of all material, cultural and intellectual progress. Official statistics necessarily
aggregate market transactions involving tangibles and intangibles at monetary
exchange values. However it is an error, in the sense of being a misperception leading
to wrong action, to mistake this equivalencing of things and non-things as more than a
necessary procedural fiction. In this system, one opera performance equals, say, 100
lorryloads of gravel, but the logical reality is that gravel is part of the primary
inventory, opera and all other intangibles are secondary or consequential. This
inversion of the important and the estimable lies behind the paradox of the
deindustrialization which is in process and the deagriculturalization which has already
run its course in some parts of the world - namely that our entire civilisation rests (and
logically and factually must always rest) on the output of this (in employment terms)
disappearing sector. Eventually, the sector which ultimately produces all value
will appear in the statistics as one which adds zero value in current terms.
Fortunately, the real word of affairs shows no sign of acting on this erroneous
perception. For those accustomed to see the world in abstractions, misperceptions still
seem to obscure the reality.
Paper in HTML form
WoPEc - Working papers in economics - WUSTL December 2002 Paper in pdf form
Abstract: The author of this note takes it as self evident that prosperity and the provision of "things" (buildings, roads, furniture, furnishings, clothes, machines and equipment of all sorts) go together. The way people generally speak and act is in line with this view. If this is so, domestic manufacturing must continually keep pace with gross domestic product, provided that the necessary "things" are not imported from elsewhere. However, many people are persuaded that domestic manufacturing is in terminal decline, and that the lost output is being replaced by imports from the developing world. Almost daily, one may read of manufacturing jobs being "exported" to the Far East. However, it is simply impossible to import goods without a more or less balancing volume of exports, and there is in reality limited scope for exporting a sufficient volume of services. Imports of goods must more or less be balanced by the export of domestically produced goods. How can a widespread perception of decline be reconciled with a reality of growth? The answer is that the "decline" which is perceived is a decline in employment in the industrial sector, but this decline is more than counterbalanced by the rise of productivity, so that the domestic output of goods by and large keeps pace with the growth of GDP. This note summarises the statistical evidence for the accuracy of this view. A substantial footnote discusses the role of journalists and academics in sustaining the perception of the decline of manufacturing.
Paper in HTML form
Abstract:
We all, including economics professors, statisticians and journalists, know just by looking around that our comfort and prosperity is determined by the plethora of objects produced by technical innovations over the millennia, centuries and decades. The earnings of billionaire investment managers may come from their “services”, but their prosperity is manifest in their possession of, or ability to buy, things which have been grown, cooked, mined, constructed, or manufactured. However, by some quirk of social psychology, those economics professors, statisticians and journalists (and no doubt bankers too) apparently believe, simultaneously, that things are not “important”. Agriculture has already been written off as “contributing only 2% of the economy”, and manufacturing is “declining” towards the same invisibility. Recently headlines appeared in the Financial Times and the Daily Mail that “business and financial services eclipse manufacturing” and “the City is supreme as factories fade away”. What was the source of those preposterous views? None other that our Office of National Statistics, whose own press release had been headlined in a similar way. As usual there was no response from any quarter, not even from the CBI Manufacturing Council, to point out that the ONS data had absolutely nothing to do with the only aspect of manufacturing that matters for national prosperity, namely physical output. This note suggests that the ONS should put its house in order. We need not only facts, but a balanced presentation, without attention-seeking headlines.
Paper in HTML form
Abstract. Politicians, journalists - commentators on economic matters generally - evolve a sort of quasi-stable rhetoric. They select two or three foreign countries with which they like to compare their own, either as models to be followed, or traps to be avoided. Other countries are rarely or never mentioned. They repeat over and over again mantras such as "we are the fourth largest economy in the world" in the UK, or variants of "the dot.com revolution" or "the new paradigm" in the USA. In arguments in the UK over the replacement of sterling by the Euro, it is almost a daily occurrence to hear growth in the UK contrasted with recession in Eurozone Germany. It appears likely that these stories emerge in part from appraisals of GDP expressed for the purpose of cross-country comparison in a currency unit (the Euro or dollar, say) calculated at the ruling rate of exchange. This calculation can be done instantly. It is "news". The more recent method of using purchasing power is much more complex and its results are published late. They are not "news", and do not affect the established rhetoric. Nevertheless, they are the truth, or as near to that as economic data can be, and often quite strikingly at variance with the current story.
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Abstract. It seems rash even to raise the question in the title. The universal belief is
that the answer is and must be "yes". Yet factual evidence for this belief is curiously
lacking, maybe even felt to be unnecessary. This paper takes what is thought to be all
the, not very voluminous, post-war factual data which exists and which may bear on
the matter, and treats this data in every plausible way to find if any convincing
demonstration is possible that low inflation is associated with high long term growth
rate in GNP. This includes special attention to Germany, the country which is the
popular (and sole) paradigm among UK authorities and commentators. The paper
concludes that no such demonstration is possible.
Paper in HTML form
Abstract. In a previous paper, the author concluded that there was no evidence that
low inflation was associated with improved growth rate. In this note, he examines a
paper by R. J. Barro which tends to the opposing view. He suggests that the evidence
of this paper in fact reinforces his conclusion.
Paper in HTML form
Abstract. In a previous paper, the author concluded that there was no evidence that
low inflation was associated with improved growth rate. In a later note, he examined a
paper by R. J. Barro which tended to the opposing view, and suggested that the
evidence of that paper in fact reinforced his conclusion. In this note he comments on a
paper by W. R. J. Alexander, concluding that time series analysis, especially with
additional variables as in this paper, is unlikely to be able to contradict cross-section
results.
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Abstract. The general view of the media, bankers, business and politicians, not noticeably contradicted by academics, is that one of the main functions, or the main function, of the central bank is to analyse the progress of the economy, and then to steer it with skilful judgement towards health and growth, by making decisions to change their base interest rate, with carefully chosen timing, amount and direction. The data presented here show that it is impossible to sustain this notion of skilful time-critical steering, or even that the central bank does in fact lead or determine the short term interest rates available to savers or business. The contrary proposition, that commercial short-term interest rates are in fact observed and followed by the central bank, is mathematically sustainable, and generally in accord with the observed facts.
Paper in HTML form
Abstract: Following on from the note entitled “The Function of the Central Bank” (see above), this note brings the data up to date. It will be re-issued at intervals. It will monitor the tendency of short-term interest rates, give the author's judgement on the likely movement of the central bank rate in the UK, US and EU zones, and enable the reader to make his own judgement. An addendum shows that by the normal standards of statistical testing (which by their nature must always fall short of proof), the 3-month bank rate leads the changes announced by the central banks in their base rates.
Paper in HTML form
Abstract:
When Pigou vigorously attacked Keynes immediately the General Theory was published, he wrote that, “since a detailed running commentary would be both tedious and un-illuminating, I shall not adopt that method”. These reading notes follow precisely this tedious route. The truth cannot always be entertaining. Keynes was one of the most fluent and plausible rhetoricians of his age, and it could be argued that his work can be examined only by dismantling his rhetoric line by line to expose the total logical vacuum which in cold objective fact the General Theory is.
Keynes’ book was seemingly written at speed, contains no bibliography, virtually no mention of factual data, little evidence, pseudo-algebra only for appearances, no attempt at anything which could be called scientific method. His acknowledged greatness lay in his cleverness, and his great skill as a debater, negotiator, journalist, and politician, not at all in his ability or interest in searching out the truth. His “theory” is presented in terms of mechanistic cause-and-effect models of economic society, but quite demonstrably, these models are based on nothing but the repetitious re-statement of Keynes’s prior and evidence-free conviction that the cure for unemployment and recession is to stimulate spending, any spending, useful or useless, either by individuals or by governments. Keynes used every rhetorical trick imaginable to hide the empty centre of his work, from “as I shall show … ” onwards. His mainstay, as Pigou remarked, was a deliberate lack of precision and clarity. The great sociological mystery is - how did this transparently fact-free “theory” sweep everything before it?
Paper in HTML form
Abstract. It has been said, fairly plausibly, that "Bayesian inference is one of the most
widely known eponyms in all of science". But unlike common scientific eponyms, it is
by no means clear exactly what "Bayesian" means, and what it has to do with Bayes.
"Bayesian", and the dozen or so words and phrases which are usually associated with
it, seem to be more like unspecific words of the English language, deployed by an
author as he wishes, rather than fixed technical terms. The obscurity of the language,
relative to the precise meanings associated with, say, Newton's laws or Heisenberg's
uncertainty principle, is matched by the obscurity of the history - the virtually unknown
Bayes, the posthumous paper, the impenetrable and incoherent style, the muddled
logic, the virtual silence on his work for 200 years, the sudden emergence in the last
several decades, not of new knowledge, but of new Bayesian additions to the
vocabulary. This note surveys the notions and the history. It concludes that the
Bayesian vocabulary is vague and pretentious, and serves no useful purpose.
Paper in HTML form
Abstract:
Wittgenstein and Russell both in their different ways showed that they believed that ultimately, there were better things to do with one’s life than study or talk about philosophy. Both were remarkable men. The words of both appear in the English translation of the Tractatus, Russell’s in his introduction to Wittgenstein’s book. This note comments on these words, almost one at a time. The lack of clarity, logic and coherence of both authors raises the puzzling question – in what does greatness lie? Is it in personality, debating skill, membership of a mutually admiring elite? This note discovers nothing of interest or importance in anything actually written between the covers of this book.
The note is essentially reading notes, as was my note on Keynes’ General Theory. I recall that when Keynes’ friend and rival, Pigou, vigorously attacked Keynes immediately the General Theory was published, he wrote that, “since a detailed running commentary would be both tedious and un-illuminating, I shall not adopt that method”. The notes below follow precisely this tedious route. The truth cannot always be entertaining. Pigou chose to challenge Keynes on the latter’s home ground, as a debater, a predictably hopeless task. For Wittgenstein, as for Keynes, I might argue that his work can be examined only by dismantling his rhetoric line by line to lay bare its lack of discipline, of coherence, of logical development, and of content.
Paper in HTML form
Abstract:
These are critical notes made while reading Deborah A Redmans's "Economics and the Philosophy of Science". The philosophy is largely that of Popper, Kuhn and Lakatos. Redman begins in the style of a neutral reporter, but later shows her impatience with the confusions sown by those eminent people. Hutchison supplies the main sceptical comments. My main comment is that neither Redman, nor the philosophers she quotes, appear to recognise that it is simply impossible to discuss "science" if the unstated assumption is that science is whatever anyone chooses to call science. One has to start with the strikingly observed worldwide unanimity of physicists and chemists within their respective disciplines, and take account of the fall-off of unanimity (that is, the widening scope for disagreement) as one moves through biology, medicine, etc. (that is, as the matters studied become more and more complex). Economists are in the absurd situation of claiming to be scientists, or at least, wanting to appear to be scientific, when the matters they study are simply too complex ever to lead to consensus. The absurdity is demonstrated when, for example, Friedman is cited in this book as claiming that there is no fundamental distinction between economics and the physical sciences. At the other end of the spectrum, historians and philosophers do well to ply their trade without making inappropriate claims of objectivity.
Paper in HTML form
This is my own translation of a work which appears from the bibliography to have a significant English-speaking audience, but of which there seems to be no readily accessible English version.
English translation
Abstract:
E O Wilson’s book "Consilience" is a notably unscientific plea for science to take over the so-called social sciences, from economics to psychology, and extend also into art and religion. The text rambles on, with exalted brilliance according to one reviewer, over this whole field, but the brilliance sheds no new light, and fails to explain exactly what consilience is, how it might be achieved, and what benefit would result if any of these subjects (for example, art) was connected back to genes, biology, chemistry and finally physics. It is not mentioned that such a connection to the "harder" sciences is in any case a pipedream.
Paper in HTML form
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