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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. The idea that water was the unifying medium for all nature is the center of which philosophical view?
(a) Materialism.
(b) Idealism.
(c) Science.
(d) Mysticism.

2. What is the goal, in Wilson's account, of molecular research on human cells?
(a) Producing organs.
(b) Discovering new life forms.
(c) Recreating human tissue from cell cultures.
(d) Curing cancer.

3. How has the postmodern fragmentation of knowledge affected consilience, in Wilson's account??
(a) It has generated unprecedented discussions between disciplines.
(b) It has opened new fields.
(c) It has created the conditions for unification.
(d) It has not been useful.

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

5. What does Wilson credit animals with being able to see?
(a) The causes beneath their actions.
(b) The world beyond the spectrum of our vision.
(c) The present moment.
(d) The urgency of nature.

6. What is the only way to get a clear picture of the world, in Wilson's account?
(a) To add philosophy and ethics to all natural sciences.
(b) To separate humanities from natural science.
(c) To divorce the natural science from social sciences.
(d) To integrate natural science with social sciences and humanities.

7. How does Wilson describe ant colonies?
(a) As interdependent systems.
(b) As the sum of their constituent ants.
(c) As a kind of controlled chaos.
(d) As superorganisms.

8. What do the laws of physics transcend, in Wilson's account?
(a) Mythologies.
(b) Languages.
(c) Galaxies.
(d) Cultures.

9. What did the idea of intellectual unity foster in the Enlightenment?
(a) Diplomacy.
(b) Racial supremacy.
(c) European supremacy.
(d) Human rights.

10. What does Wilson say evidence from the natural sciences says about Enlightenment thinkers?
(a) They made correct assumptions about the material world.
(b) They made correct assumptions about the nature of divinity.
(c) They made correct assumptions about the presence of dinosaurs.
(d) They made correct assumptions about the evolution of species.

11. What can biological research do for complexity theory, in Wilson's account?
(a) Demonstrate how the cell has adapted to the numerous variables that influence its functions.
(b) Demonstrate how many variables influence a cell's functioning.
(c) Demonstrate how layers of complexity interact.
(d) Demonstrate how the cell is a unified organism.

12. What qualities of mind drove the techno-scientific age?
(a) Compassion and empathy.
(b) Justice and equality.
(c) Curiosity and creativity.
(d) Mathematics and industrialism.

13. Where does the unification of intellectual work have its benefit, in Wilson's account?
(a) In the future.
(b) In philosophy.
(c) In politics.
(d) In environmental policy.

14. What does Wilson say was the consequence of Robespierre's employment of the concept of the general will?
(a) 17,000 Frenchmen were killed.
(b) The French went to war with Russia.
(c) Napoleon rose to power.
(d) The French undermined their own revolution.

15. What is consilience?
(a) An agreed approach to different subjects.
(b) A historical basis for unifying fields of study.
(c) An underlying pattern that tends toward unification.
(d) A proposal for reorganizing departments of knowledge.

Short Answer Questions

1. What would need to be true before we could establish the goals and progress of evolutionary processes, in Wilson's account?

2. What did Freud focus on, in his investigation of dreams?

3. When did the Enlightenment end, in Wilson's account?

4. Wilson says that passion and emotion are both linked to what?

5. How does Wilson describe the strength of the French Revolution?

(see the answer keys)

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