ABSTRACT
The heyday of postmodern theory in the humanities has passed, though a deep skepticism of institutions and texts persists, particularly in literary studies. "Reality" and "truth," always enclosed in quotation marks, are under suspicion as counters for false authority and false consciousness. As a pervasive attitude, radical skepticism in practice is exhausting and almost impossible to sustain. In the humanities, it has had a hollowing out effect. Sociobiology does not exclude the role of environment and culture in evolution, but the influence of genetics is preponderant. E. O. Wilson's Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge promotes his neo-Darwinian theory of sociobiology as the master discipline for all the disciplines. Wilson speaks of anthropology as "breaking into two cultures of its own, different but equal in merit." Wilson regards the humanities in their present incarnation as mystifications of their subject matter.
