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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does Transcendentalism justify war, in Edmund Wilson's account?
(a) Each side refers to nature for their authority to fight.
(b) Each side poses as protecting an individual's rights.
(c) Each side describes their cause as sacred.
(d) Each side relies on unifying logic.

2. What is kin selection?
(a) The process by which parents decide which child to favor.
(b) The survival strategy by which people care most deeply for their kin.
(c) The strategy by which a family gives itself the best chance of expanding.
(d) The process by which people choose mates.

3. What does Edmund Wilson say cultures are made of?
(a) The highest expressions of symbolic language in art.
(b) Groups of language users.
(c) Linked compositions of myths and symbols.
(d) Genetic pools.

4. Which ocean is still experiencing increasing yields?
(a) Southern Ocean.
(b) Atlantic Ocean.
(c) Indian Ocean.
(d) Pacific Ocean.

5. What statistic shows the strength of the transcendental view, in Edmund Wilson's account?
(a) 40% of Americans believe in original sin.
(b) 90% of Americans believe in God.
(c) 60% of Americans believe that man is a god in ruins.
(d) 35% of Americans are freethinking atheists.

6. What power does Wilson attribute to men who control large amounts of territory?
(a) The power to distribute genes widely.
(b) The power to determine the local economy.
(c) The power to command people's labor.
(d) The power to create monopolies.

7. What is the traditional view of art?
(a) That it is the latest biological development.
(b) That it evolved with the brain's genes.
(c) That it developed when language developed.
(d) That it has no end or purpose except in itself.

8. Which social science does Edmund Wilson say is best situated to bridge the gap between natural science and social science?
(a) Anthropology.
(b) Economics.
(c) Sociology.
(d) Political science.

9. How does Edmund Wilson describe the current era of economics?
(a) As the era of statistical analysis.
(b) As the era of international debt.
(c) As the era of supply and demand.
(d) As the Era of Model Building.

10. What do the arts do that makes them different from the sciences, in Edmund Wilson's account?
(a) Implicate qualities, instead of defining them.
(b) Register sensations, instead of generating them.
(c) Prophesying laws, instead of revealing them.
(d) Generate sensations, instead of measuring them.

11. What is the problem with anthropology, in Edmund Wilson's estimation?
(a) It is dominated by scientists who deny anthropology's genetic aspect.
(b) It is divided into two irreconcilable branches, neither of which resolve the question of diversity.
(c) It is run by social scientists who attribute everything to genetics.
(d) It is not funded well enough.

12. How do widely distributed cultural traits affect genes?
(a) They limit the expression of genes responsible for less-widely distributed cultural traits.
(b) They bolster the genes that predispose them.
(c) They allow the genes that predispose them to evolve.
(d) They prevent the spread of other cultural traits and other genes.

13. How much will sea levels theoretically rise if the ice caps melt?
(a) 60 cm.
(b) 30 cm.
(c) 120 cm.
(d) 90 cm.

14. Why does Edmund Wilson say that human existence in the future will depend on ethics?
(a) Because empathy will prevent exploitation.
(b) Because people will only work together once they can frame the problems.
(c) Because evolution favors contract formation.
(d) Because the alternative to self-extinction is preserving the others around the self.

15. What does Edmund Wilson credit human nature with altering?
(a) Language.
(b) Epigenetic rules.
(c) The environment.
(d) Technological influences.

Short Answer Questions

1. What do modern technologies give humans the ability to choose?

2. Where does Edmund Wilson say consilience is beneficial?

3. Where does postmodernism fail to accord with science, in Edmund Wilson's account?

4. What were ethics constructed around, according to Wilson?

5. What explanation does Wilson offer for incest taboos?

(see the answer keys)

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