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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What subject would Wilson like to see more of in undergraduate education?

2. How did Locke distinguish between culture and history?

3. What field does Wilson say philosophers and scientists should collaborate in?

4. What did Descartes argue for, in Wilson's account?

5. What does science seek, in Wilson's account?

Short Essay Questions

1. What ancient sources does Wilson trace consilience back to?

2. How does Wilson describe the mindset necessary to be a scientist?

3. What consequence does Wilson hope consilience can have on public policy?

4. What is reductionism, and what makes it useful for science?

5. How would you describe Wilson's relationship with religion?

6. How would you describe Condorcet's influence on Wilson's idea of consilience?

7. Why is consilience especially important in studying the mind?

8. What is the relationship between chaos theory and consilience?

9. How does Wilson offer ants as a metaphor for consilience?

10. How does science impact the arts, in E.O. Wilson's account?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What are the reasons that the sciences have resisted the urge to unification expressed in consilience? How are the sciences organized like trades, and how have individuals staked claims on funding or authority that would prevent consilience?

Essay Topic 2

The model for scientific work is based on hypothesis and testing, with each discovery creating the need for further testing and further hypotheses and publications--but Wilson describes scientific knowledge as settled and established. Is Wilson overlooking the uncertainty in scientific work and generalizing the results? Does the scientific method itself foster consilience or undermine it?

Essay Topic 3

Part of Wilson's argument about the value of science is the technology that science has required for its own purposes, or produced for consumers, but applied science seems to be different than the pure science Wilson is talking about throughout 'Consilience', especially when the perpetual drive to innovate in business has required the policy of planned obsolescence, where everything technological is designed to be superseded by new products in the future. Does this present a problem for consilience, or is this beyond the scope of Wilson's argument? How do science's industrial uses, which seem to tend toward dispersion, relate with the possibility of science's unification?

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