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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 beneficial uses can incest have in cultures, in Durham's account?
(a) It provides evidence of aristocracy.
(b) It produces scapegoats and criminals.
(c) It produces heroes and giants.
(d) It tests the laws.

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

3. What does Wilson offer as evidence of cross-cultural epi-genetic rules?
(a) Myths.
(b) Regional cuisine.
(c) Mating rituals.
(d) Councils.

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

5. What are social scientists lacking, according to Wilson?
(a) Purpose and drive.
(b) Relationships with the humanities.
(c) Unity and vision.
(d) Funding.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the concept of God do, in Edmund Wilson's account?

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

3. Wilson defines culture in terms of what?

4. Where do science and the arts both originate, according to Wilson?

5. Where does Edmund Wilson say consilience is beneficial?

Short Essay Questions

1. How do the senses function as epi-genetic rules?

2. What is the consilient view of religious ethics?

3. What role does the incest taboo have in genetic and cultural development?

4. How does Wilson describe the universality of art?

5. What threats to contemporary culture does Wilson describe, and how is consilience useful in answering them?

6. What does Wilson say the liberal arts should address?

7. How does art look through the gene-culture evolution paradigm Wilson offers?

8. How does postmodern art resist consilience, in E.O. Wilson's account?

9. What is the fundamental assumption behind consilience?

10. What is the sign, in EO Wilson's account, that culture is evolving?

(see the answer keys)

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