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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 field does culture need to be linked with, in order to be explained, according to Wilson?
(a) Religion.
(b) Economics.
(c) Natural sciences.
(d) Language.

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

3. What were the first artistic images of animals intended to evoke, according to Wilson?
(a) Myths.
(b) Gods.
(c) Spirits.
(d) Real events.

4. What causes economic theories to fail, in Edmund Wilson's estimation?
(a) Reliance on statistical analysis instead of creative synthesis.
(b) Lack of integration with religion.
(c) Aloofness from the social environment.
(d) Lack of integration with psychology.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Wilson describe the difference between gifted and less-gifted artists' brains?

2. How do widely distributed cultural traits affect genes?

3. What is gene-culture evolution?

4. What does natural consilience connect?

5. How do hereditarians see the evolution of culture?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. What ethical perspective does Wilson call the empiricist view?

4. What social problems does Wilson say are caused by failures in social sciences?

5. What social science does Wilson credit with coming closest to consilience?

6. What is volitional evolution, and what does Wilson say are its effects?

7. What role does Wilson say creativity has in survival and evolution?

8. What is the consilient view of religious ethics?

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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