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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Einstein recognized what in his discoveries, in Wilson's account?
(a) The unity of complex phenomena.
(b) The impossibility of any unified theories.
(c) The unity of branches of knowledge.
(d) The centrality of math in knowledge.

2. When was Condorcet born?
(a) 1752.
(b) 1789.
(c) 1743.
(d) 1776.

3. What is the difference between primary and secondary emotions?
(a) Primary emotions are conscious, secondary emotions are instinctual.
(b) Primary emotions are deliberate, secondary emotions are unconscious.
(c) Primary emotions are tied to instincts, secondary emotions are tied to homeostatic regulation.
(d) Primary emotions are inborn, secondary emotions are personal.

4. What problem does Wilson identify in Freud's research on dreams?
(a) He was monomaniacally focused on childhood sexual trauma.
(b) He didn't test his hypotheses.
(c) He experimented with cocaine.
(d) He uses mental patients for his experiments.

5. How many cells comprise the brain?
(a) 100 billion.
(b) 1 trillion.
(c) No one knows.
(d) 100 million.

6. How did Wilson react against the religion he inherited?
(a) He maintained his faith in spite of his scientific research.
(b) He rejected literal interpretation of the Bible.
(c) He embraced it but insisted on the ability to hold exclusive beliefs.
(d) He tried to reconcile his science with his faith.

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

8. What did Enlightenment thinkers tried to link, in Wilson's account?
(a) Humanity and philosophy.
(b) Reason and religion.
(c) Science and humanities.
(d) Man and animal.

9. What does science try to integrate, in Wilson's account?
(a) Elements of systems.
(b) The history of science.
(c) Systems of explaining phenomena.
(d) The foundations of different sciences.

10. How do nerve cells in the brain connect?
(a) Through axons.
(b) Through synapses.
(c) Through neurons.
(d) Through dendrites.

11. What does Wilson mean by the Ionian Enchantment'?
(a) Belief in the unity of species.
(b) Belief in a transcendent spirit.
(c) Belief in the multiplicity of forms.
(d) Belief in a historical process.

12. What religion was Wilson born into?
(a) Southern Baptism.
(b) Judaism.
(c) Protestantism.
(d) Catholicism.

13. What benefit does Wilson say consilience has?
(a) It translates science into humanities and vice versa.
(b) It allows facts and theories to be tested.
(c) It describes the humanities in scientific terms.
(d) It provides a Rosetta Stone for the sciences.

14. What does Wilson use the discussion of the unity of species to prepare for?
(a) A discussion of the equality of genders.
(b) A discussion of the inevitability of progress.
(c) A discussion of the unity of sciences.
(d) A discussion of the conscience and society.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What philosophical assumption underlay the notion that evolution followed simple laws?

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

3. When was complexity theory formed?

4. How can science help us, in Wilson's account?

5. Where is the seat of consciousness in the brain?

(see the answer keys)

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