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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. 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.

2. Why does Wilson say that the concept of evolutionary progress is not easily defined?
(a) Because evolution does not have a goal.
(b) Because the goal of evolution is clear to individuals but not to the race as a whole.
(c) Because the historical record is unclear, and because the present moment is still chaotic.
(d) Because it is impossible to predict what conditions will be, and how they will require adaptation.

3. What does Wilson distinguish between?
(a) Religion and myth.
(b) Science and pseudo-science.
(c) Science and ethics.
(d) Science and religion.

4. What does Wilson say we discover when we link social sciences, biology, ethics and environmental policy?
(a) Fields need to have unified sources of funding.
(b) Each field bolsters reasoning in other fields.
(c) Academic research involves similar intellectual work no matter the field.
(d) Fields have their own unique disciplines.

5. How did Locke distinguish between culture and history?
(a) Culture was built forward, history was built backward.
(b) Culture fostered the passions, history fostered reason.
(c) Culture followed laws, history evolved.
(d) Culture was chaotic, history was self-organizing.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does local positivism fail to distinguish between, in Wilson's narration?

2. What are the nerve cells in the brain called?

3. That scientific tools does Wilson credit with driving the age of scientific expansion?

4. What benefit does Wilson say consilience has?

5. What does Wilson call the discrete pieces of evidence?

Short Essay Questions

1. In what way does Wilson distinguish between evolutionary progress and consilience?

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

3. How does consilience aim to resolve political problems?

4. What does consilience provide as an educational policy?

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

6. How would you describe Francis Bacon's influence on Wilson's idea of consilience?

7. How would you describe Rousseau's influence on Wilson's idea of consilience?

8. What does Wilson offer as an alternative to scientific knowledge and consilience?

9. How does Wilson offer dreams as an example of the need for consilience?

10. How do anatomical limitations affect our science, in Wilson's account?

(see the answer keys)

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