View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the problem with anthropology, in Edmund Wilson's estimation?
(a) It is run by social scientists who attribute everything to genetics.
(b) It is divided into two irreconcilable branches, neither of which resolve the question of diversity.
(c) It is not funded well enough.
(d) It is dominated by scientists who deny anthropology's genetic aspect.

2. How does Edmund Wilson describe the current era of economics?
(a) As the era of statistical analysis.
(b) As the era of supply and demand.
(c) As the Era of Model Building.
(d) As the era of international debt.

3. How do hereditarians see the evolution of culture?
(a) As the result of nature.
(b) As the result of environmental factors.
(c) As an emergence of the world spirit.
(d) As a change in brain chemistry.

4. What cannot be expressed by brain imaging, in Edmund Wilson's account?
(a) Reactions to art.
(b) The genetic predisposition toward artistic work.
(c) Traits responsible for art.
(d) The locus of artistic appreciation.

5. What did economists do during the Marginalist Era in economics?
(a) They examined social behaviors as individual activities.
(b) They used science to analyze motives and trends in the mass.
(c) They described production as the result of supply and demand.
(d) They used statistics to model mass behaviors.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does status give a man power to do, in Edmund Wilson's account?

2. What does Wilson say about the complexity of the social sciences?

3. How many children per parent would families need to have for the world's population to reach 12.5 billion by 2050?

4. What causes a change in traits?

5. What explanation does Wilson offer for incest taboos?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the fundamental assumption behind consilience?

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

3. How does Wilson describe the universality of art?

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

5. What is the purpose of the social sciences, and how does Wilson distinguish the social sciences from the physical social sciences?

6. How do social factors influence genetic distribution?

7. In what way are epi-genetic rules cross-cultural?

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 776 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample