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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What will the combination of the arts and sciences ultimately create?
(a) Transcendence.
(b) The revelation of the source of creativity.
(c) The genetic source of imagination.
(d) The evolution of the brain.

2. Where do tangible phenomena evolve, according to consilience?
(a) In material processes.
(b) In natural laws.
(c) In myth.
(d) In language.

3. What problem does Wilson attribute to failures in the social sciences?
(a) Failure to foresee the collapse of the welfare state.
(b) Failure to regulate industry.
(c) Failure to react to environmental disasters.
(d) Failure to remedy the inequality between the classes.

4. Wilson defines culture in terms of what?
(a) Religion.
(b) Language.
(c) Environment.
(d) Genes.

5. How many billion people can the earth sustain, theoretically?
(a) 12.
(b) 10.
(c) 16.
(d) 22.

6. What do cultures use from the mind, in Wilson's account?
(a) Narratives.
(b) Science.
(c) Myths.
(d) Humanities.

7. What does Edmund Wilson say is the purpose of the social science?
(a) To provide a way to control the future.
(b) To reveal the hidden meanings in people's actions.
(c) To demonstrate how to conquer other cultures.
(d) To Keep suppressed cultures alive.

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

9. What is the social cost of violating the incest taboo?
(a) Failure to adapt and survive.
(b) Legal punishment.
(c) Disenfranchisement.
(d) Unfit offspring.

10. What is gene-culture evolution?
(a) Evolution of the genes that change a species' culture.
(b) Development of individuals and races within evolving cultures.
(c) Enrichment of the environment within which genes are altered.
(d) Changes in human culture that are driven by genetic changes.

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

12. What does Edmund Wilson say wars are products of?
(a) Genes and culture.
(b) Political failures.
(c) Technological imbalances.
(d) Resources and demand.

13. What role does Wilson ascribe to human nature?
(a) Changing how language expresses genetics.
(b) Changing what genetic expressions mean.
(c) Connecting genes to nature.
(d) Changing how genes create environments.

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

15. How does Transcendentalism validate ethics?
(a) It describes the individual as the source of all morality.
(b) It treats the conscience as evidence of innate morality.
(c) It ascribes natural law to God's will.
(d) It locates the moral reasoning in God, which is to say in everything.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the traditional view of art?

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

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

4. What did economists do during the Marginalist Era in economics?

5. What causes a change in traits?

(see the answer keys)

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