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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 does Wilson describe the difference between gifted and less-gifted artists' brains?
(a) Gifted artists use a larger are of their brains.
(b) Gifted artists have more connections between brain areas.
(c) Gifted artists have a larger language center.
(d) Less-gifted artists have smaller capacity for empathy.

2. What does the concept of God do, in Edmund Wilson's account?
(a) Ground the mind in its source.
(b) Unify the sciences and humanities.
(c) Clarify man's relationship with things whose origins are inexplicable.
(d) Open the mind to what is beyond it.

3. Which social science does Edmund Wilson say is best situated to bridge the gap between natural science and social science?
(a) Economics.
(b) Sociology.
(c) Political science.
(d) Anthropology.

4. What power does Wilson attribute to men who control large amounts of territory?
(a) The power to create monopolies.
(b) The power to distribute genes widely.
(c) The power to command people's labor.
(d) The power to determine the local economy.

5. What problem does Wilson attribute to failures in the social sciences?
(a) Failure to remedy the inequality between the classes.
(b) Failure to regulate industry.
(c) Failure to foresee the collapse of the welfare state.
(d) Failure to react to environmental disasters.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the danger of volitional evolution, in Edmund Wilson's account?

2. How does Edmund Wilson describe the current era of economics?

3. What is the problem with anthropology, in Edmund Wilson's estimation?

4. What do the arts need science for?

5. What is the weakness of the current era of economics, in Edmund Wilson's account?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

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

7. How does Wilson describe the universality of art?

8. What is the fundamental assumption behind consilience?

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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