In the the latest PB2.0 thread, thinkers/gardeners Lambert and FrenchDoc intrigued me with their parallel of PB1.0 to a monoculture. Hmmm, let's consider that further: a monoculture is a biological desert which drives out most living things, sustained only by massive inputs of poison and manure, sucking resources from the surrounding environment, vulnerable to destruction from a single external stress, its product nutritionally weak.

Ecologists know this. It suggests a framing that could create exciting opportunities for support for PB2.0.

We are becoming blogosphere ecologists on this site. Ecologists don't just study; they make management recommendations and often enter advocacy. When it comes to blogging, I say that's us. Glancing over shoulder... no one's there. Yep, it's us.

Citizen science is taking off -- why not join forces? A blogger is a citizen scientist if he or she observes impartially, sorts facts into truths, disseminates truth, acknowledges conflicting evidence, quickly correcting or publicly recanting (which is actually very charming).

Thinking of ourselves as blog ecologists reveals that we are part of a growing group of big thinkers creating a richer, less truthy discourse by bringing together politics, humanities and sciences hard and soft. Some have major bully pulpits. They need to hear from us. And we need their input. Some are bloggers, some have formed foundations or societies. One or more may help enrich, publicize and support PB2.0. Here's a few of my favorites to start some brainstorming on joining The Third Culture*:

The Edge Foundation is promoting a *“Third Culture” of "thinkers in the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing, are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we are." Edge publishes bestselling collections of online essays. Its current front page is a discussion of Atlantic Monthly’s Is Google Making Us Stupid: What the Internet is doing to Our Brains.

Pharyngula is, I believe, the most popular science blog -- light-hearted and accessible. PZ Myers is scary smart, hilarious, and was fair-minded during the primary, criticizing both candidates freely and speaking well of Hillary Clinton's science-based work and science platform. PB2.0 can do more to push liberal politics beyond political junkies.

The Skeptics Society promotes evidence and truth in our daily lives. President Michael Shermer is a bestselling science and popular author and columnist. They have a large following, a magazine found in most bookstores, topical forums, online newsletters and guest commentaries. Shermer grew in stature when he held a huge forum at Caltech on global warming, though he was a skeptic, then wrote a widely-republished column announcing he'd been wrong (an epiphany no doubt delayed by a temporarily too-rigid libertarian political agenda). PB2.0 could network with the skeptical movement and help make self-correction fashionable, as Lambert and VastLeft have been doing recently.

Our PB2.0 discussion fits beautifully into the movement to encourage consilience, the convergence of ideas normally kept apart by increasing specialization, to find real truths, the only basis for a progressive society. E.O. Wilson popularized this term in his call for bigger and better thinking, Consilience, The Unity of Knowledge.

I learned here about the 2009 science bloggers convention. Participating in events like this in addition to political bloggers' conventions could give just the paradigm-shift-kick-in-the-ass PB2.0 could use.

I’d like to hear back whether folks think this framing is useful. And I especially hope you found something amidst my long-windedness that spawns some ideas you'll share with us.

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You're now excused. Unless you'd like some words of inspiration from E. O. Wilson.

“ Outside our heads there is freestanding reality. Only madmen and a scattering of constructivist philosophers doubt its existence... No one should suppose that objective truth is impossible to attain, even when the most committed philosophers urge us to acknowledge that incapacity.”

PB2.0 will push back against postmodernist, relativistic nihilism.

“ Beware of the idols of the mind, the fallacies into which undisciplined thinkers most easily fall... Among them, idols of the tribe assume more order than exists in chaotic nature; those of the imprisoning cave, the idiosyncrasies of individual belief and passion; of the market place, the power of mere words to induce belief in non-existent things; and of the theater, unquestioning acceptance of philosophical beliefs and misleading demonstration.”

"... those of the imprisoning cave"... hmmm. Why does that phrase glow orange in my mind?

“ The complementary instincts of morality and tribalism are easily manipulated. Civilization has made them more so. “

PB2.0 will scorn manipulation.

“Only fluency across the boundaries will provide a clear view of the world as it really is, not as seen through the lens of ideologies and religious dogmas or commanded by myopic response to immediate need... The same is true for the public intellectuals, the columnists, the media interrogators, and think-tank gurus. The best of their analyses are careful and responsible, and sometimes correct, but the substantive base of their wisdom is fragmented and lopsided."

PB2.0 will consistently demand that media be responsible, accountable and evidence-based, regardless of whose ox is gored.

“We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely. ”

PB2.0 will promote critical thinking and synthesize information to support wise political choices.

“To ask if consilience can be gained in the innermost domains of the circles, such that sound judgment will flow easily from one discipline to another, is equivalent to asking whether, in the gathering of disciplines, specialists can ever reach agreement on a common body of abstract principles and evidentiary proof. I think they can. “

Yes, we can!