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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Wilson distinguish between?

2. What purpose does Wilson say dreams serve?

3. What does Wilson use the discussion of the unity of species to prepare for?

4. What is reductionism?

5. What is the difference between primary and secondary emotions?

Short Essay Questions

1. How would you describe Wilson's relationship with religion?

2. Why is consilience especially important in studying the mind?

3. How does Wilson describe the mindset necessary to be a scientist?

4. How is Wilson's theory a consequence of evolutionary theory?

5. How is knowledge accepted as settled, or final?

6. What consequence does Wilson hope consilience can have on public policy?

7. Why does Wilson cite Einstein as an example of someone who practiced consilience?

8. How would you describe John Locke's influence on Wilson's idea of consilience?

9. How does consilience aim to resolve political problems?

10. How would you describe Condorcet's influence on Wilson's idea of consilience?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How does the knowledge that EO Wilson lost sight in one eye in childhood and lost a substantial degree of his sense of hearing in adolescence affect his idea of consilience? How would you relate the physical challenges with the intellectual rigor of the scientist, and the vision of the social theorist?

Essay Topic 2

What is the difference between consilience and wisdom?

Essay Topic 3

How would you respond to a reviewer who wrote that after Wilson leaves his discussion of biology and reductionism, which were his fields of training, he loses authority, and ventures into fields he is not expert in, where his ideas about art and religion are off-base, and his argument about objectivity is tautological. Is this a fair critique?

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