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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. What does status give a man power to do, in Edmund Wilson's account?
(a) Have more money.
(b) Have more wives.
(c) Have more offspring.
(d) Have more influence.

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

4. What evolution creates culture?
(a) Environment.
(b) Symbolic language.
(c) Genetics.
(d) Theories of representation.

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

6. What are effective ethical codes based on?
(a) Inherited custom.
(b) Religion.
(c) Scientific laws.
(d) Objective knowledge.

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

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

9. What does the concept of God do, in Edmund Wilson's account?
(a) Clarify man's relationship with things whose origins are inexplicable.
(b) Open the mind to what is beyond it.
(c) Ground the mind in its source.
(d) Unify the sciences and humanities.

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

11. What does natural consilience connect?
(a) Heredity and culture.
(b) Language and genetics.
(c) Language and culture.
(d) Time and change.

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

13. What consequence does Wilson describe to technological advancement?
(a) Environmental damage.
(b) Unprecedented access to knowledge.
(c) Racial discrimination.
(d) Economic inequality.

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

15. Where does Edmund Wilson say consilience is beneficial?
(a) In biology and ethics.
(b) In humanities and natural sciences.
(c) In history and technology.
(d) In all areas of learning.

Short Answer Questions

1. How, in Edmund Wilson's account, was moral reasoning affected by natural science?

2. What does Edmund Wilson say the arts ultimately create?

3. What does Edmund Wilson say is the logic behind consilience?

4. How does Transcendentalism validate ethics?

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

(see the answer keys)

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