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Definition of "consilience" [con•sil•i•ence]

  • The agreement of two or more inductions drawn from different sets of data; concurrence. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "consilience" in a sentence
  • "As philosopher William Whewell, who coined the term consilience, noted in the nineteenth century, “When an Induction, obtained from one class of facts, coincides with an Induction, obtained from another different class,” we can be very confident it is correct."
  • "The success of the natural sciences has been fueled by "consilience," he says."
  • "Timmer argues that a "consilience" of different lines of evidence strongly favors the catechismal (monophyletic) tale, and faults"