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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Wilson call the discrete pieces of evidence?
(a) Nitty gritty facts.
(b) The raw materials.
(c) Researching molecules.
(d) Atomic evidence.

2. What is the difference between primary and secondary emotions?
(a) Primary emotions are deliberate, secondary emotions are unconscious.
(b) Primary emotions are inborn, secondary emotions are personal.
(c) Primary emotions are conscious, secondary emotions are instinctual.
(d) Primary emotions are tied to instincts, secondary emotions are tied to homeostatic regulation.

3. What does science seek, in Wilson's account?
(a) Probably hypothesis.
(b) Interesting hypotheses.
(c) Objective truth based on hypothesis.
(d) The mind of God.

4. How does Wilson characterize the current state of knowledge?
(a) Fragmented.
(b) Irreconcilable.
(c) Unified.
(d) Interconnected.

5. What kind of progress does Wilson see in the history of life on earth?
(a) He sees a tendency toward complexity.
(b) He sees a punctuated equilibrium.
(c) He sees a tendency toward adaptation to environment.
(d) He sees the role of blind chance marring the evolutionary record.

6. What purpose does Wilson say dreams serve?
(a) Developing the soul through cathexes.
(b) Telling the conscious self about the doings of its unconscious.
(c) Giving the self access to the collective unconscious.
(d) Improving responses relevant to survival.

7. What did Descartes argue for, in Wilson's account?
(a) The integration of historical will and individual will.
(b) The unification knowledge.
(c) The separation of mind and matter.
(d) Universal peace.

8. Under what circumstances are theories accepted universally?
(a) When evidence is supported by interlocking theories.
(b) When a theory promises to explain phenomena.
(c) When a hypothesis explains phenomena.
(d) When experimental data can be confirmed.

9. What field does Wilson say philosophers and scientists should collaborate in?
(a) Urban planning.
(b) Conflict resolution.
(c) Biology and social sciences.
(d) International relations.

10. What accomplishment does Wilson say Einstein strove for in his work?
(a) Unify space, time and motion.
(b) Express the universe in a mathematical formula.
(c) Find the singularity at the beginning of the universe.
(d) Locate the missing mass in the universe.

11. What methods did Descartes use in his work?
(a) Hypothesis and experimentation.
(b) Deduction and analysis.
(c) Experiential learning and induction.
(d) Induction and synthesis.

12. How does consilience work?
(a) By providing a context and a practical consequence to each scientific study.
(b) By making science relevant to the humanities.
(c) By breaking things down and putting them back together.
(d) By providing different models for the same behavior.

13. After considering all the different contexts for ants' communication, how does Wilson describe their form of communication?
(a) As socially conditioned.
(b) As instinctive teamwork.
(c) As electrochemical resonance.
(d) As released pheromones.

14. The idea that water was the unifying medium for all nature is the center of which philosophical view?
(a) Science.
(b) Mysticism.
(c) Idealism.
(d) Materialism.

15. What does Wilson say was the consequence of Robespierre's employment of the concept of the general will?
(a) The French went to war with Russia.
(b) 17,000 Frenchmen were killed.
(c) The French undermined their own revolution.
(d) Napoleon rose to power.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where does Wilson propose to test the benefit of consilience?

2. What did Freud focus on, in his investigation of dreams?

3. How does Wilson characterize the modern definition of dreams?

4. How does Wilson characterize the relationship between ecology and ethics?

5. How do Gnostics and alchemists view snakes?

(see the answer keys)

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