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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through The Great Branches of Learning.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Wilson say we discover when we link social sciences, biology, ethics and environmental policy?
(a) Fields have their own unique disciplines.
(b) Fields need to have unified sources of funding.
(c) Academic research involves similar intellectual work no matter the field.
(d) Each field bolsters reasoning in other fields.

2. What might be a consequence of the unification of knowledge, in Wilson's account?
(a) A new sense of what divides mankind against itself.
(b) Streamlined education.
(c) New fields of exploration.
(d) A better understanding of ourselves.

3. What is the relationship between politicians and intellectuals, in Wilson's account?
(a) They obfuscate each other's work.
(b) They are not related.
(c) They have a mutually supportive role.
(d) They misinterpret each other's work.

4. How does Wilson characterize the relationship between ecology and ethics?
(a) By studying how people assign values, we find that ecology has always had an ethical scale of value.
(b) By valuing previously unvalued phenomena, ecology develops its own unique ethics.
(c) Without analysis in ecology, there is little basis for making ethical claims.
(d) Without tangible laws of ethics, ecology is always an approximate science, ethically.

5. What field does Wilson say philosophers and scientists should collaborate in?
(a) Urban planning.
(b) International relations.
(c) Conflict resolution.
(d) Biology and social sciences.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Wilson characterize the current state of knowledge?

2. What interpret does Wilson give the myth of Icarus?

3. How does Wilson characterize the relationship between consilience and the material world?

4. What is the only way to get a clear picture of the world, in Wilson's account?

5. What was it about armies that Wilson was struck by?

(see the answer key)

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