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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 say evidence from the natural sciences says about Enlightenment thinkers?

2. Where does the unification of intellectual work have its benefit, in Wilson's account?

3. How are scientific theories constructed and used within the scientific community, in Wilson's account?

4. Wilson says that passion and emotion are both linked to what?

5. What does science use as proof of a theory?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the term "consilience" mean?

2. How would you describe Rene Descartes' influence on Wilson's idea of consilience?

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

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

5. Why does Wilson cite Einstein as an example of someone who practiced consilience?

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

7. How would you describe John Locke's influence on Wilson's idea of consilience?

8. What is the modern understanding of dreams?

9. What three-part division does Wilson divide the brain into?

10. How do anatomical limitations affect our science, in Wilson's account?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Are 'epi-genetic rules' really just another way of saying complex social factors that have to be experienced individually? Does Wilson really evade the complexity and individuality of experience and sensation and language use?

Essay Topic 2

How would you respond to a reviewer who wrote that after Wilson leaves his discussion of biology and reductionism, which were his fields of training, he loses authority, and ventures into fields he is not expert in, where his ideas about art and religion are off-base, and his argument about objectivity is tautological. Is this a fair critique?

Essay Topic 3

What difference is there between how individuals experience consilience and how societies experience consilience? Is the best audience for 'Consilience' really a society, or are there uses for consilience in individual lives? Who do you have to be to 'use' consilience? Who is Wilson's audience?

(see the answer keys)

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