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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 does Wilson call the discrete pieces of evidence?

2. How would you describe the relationship between Descartes' theories and modern science of the brain?

3. How does Wilson explain the ideal scientist's work ethic?

4. What two fields did Wilson connect in his theory of unified learning?

5. Where do the images of snakes in dreams likely come from, in Wilson's account?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. What does E.O. Wilson mean by the Ionian Enchantment?

4. What does the term "consilience" mean?

5. How does Wilson offer dreams as an example of the need for consilience?

6. In what way does Wilson distinguish between evolutionary progress and consilience?

7. What justification does Wilson provide for integrating philosophy with biology, social science and the humanities?

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

9. How would you describe Francis Bacon's influence on Wilson's idea of consilience?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Is consilience possible, and if so, who would practice it? Is it necessarily communal? In our modern circumstance of specialized research and analysis, can one person--can one panel of people contain and unify all knowledge? Is Wilson arguing for the unification of knowledge, or just better networks and communication between disciplines?

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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