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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. How, in Edmund Wilson's account, was moral reasoning affected by natural science?
(a) Natural law created natural rights.
(b) Natural laws dispelled taboos.
(c) Natural laws clarified the location of the moral sense.
(d) Natural laws helped establish social laws.

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

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

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

5. Wilson defines culture in terms of what?
(a) Language.
(b) Environment.
(c) Genes.
(d) Religion.

Short Answer Questions

1. What power does Wilson attribute to men who control large amounts of territory?

2. What explanation does Wilson offer for incest taboos?

3. What field does culture need to be linked with, in order to be explained, according to Wilson?

4. What problem does Wilson attribute to failures in the social sciences?

5. What is critical to the development of culture, in Edmund Wilson's account?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What is the difference between nurturists and hereditarians in describing how culture evolves?

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

4. Where does ethics come from, in E.O. Wilson's account?

5. How do social factors influence genetic distribution?

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

7. What are the two branches of anthropology Wilson describes, and what question does he say they both fail to answer?

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

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

10. What ethical perspective does Wilson call the Transcendental view?

(see the answer keys)

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