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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. How many cells comprise the brain?

2. What effect does Wilson say evolution had?

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

4. That scientific tools does Wilson credit with driving the age of scientific expansion?

5. What is the only way to get a clear picture of the world, in Wilson's account?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Wilson use evolution as a parallel for consilience?

2. What does Wilson offer as an alternative to scientific knowledge and consilience?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Is consilience a project for government planners or for university budgets? Is Wilson advocating a role for consilience in government or in education?

Essay Topic 2

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 3

Wilson's book begins and ends with a call for better efficiency and use of knowledge in solving problems. To what extent is consilience really Wilson's response to the dangers of industrial modernism? Is consilience really about knowledge and disciplines, or is it about clearing the way for scientists to contribute their experience to solving problems?

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