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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 status give a man power to do, in Edmund Wilson's account?

2. Where do science and the arts both originate, according to Wilson?

3. What is the problem with anthropology, in Edmund Wilson's estimation?

4. Wilson defines culture in terms of what?

5. How does Edmund Wilson describe the current era of economics?

Short Essay Questions

1. What role does the incest taboo have in genetic and cultural development?

2. What does Wilson say the liberal arts should address?

3. What social science does Wilson credit with coming closest to consilience?

4. How does art look through the gene-culture evolution paradigm Wilson offers?

5. How does Wilson describe the universality of art?

6. Where does ethics come from, in E.O. Wilson's account?

7. How do patterns in mental development connect genes to culture?

8. How do social factors influence genetic distribution?

9. What ethical perspective does Wilson call the empiricist view?

10. What role does Wilson say creativity has in survival and evolution?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Is there a contradiction in how Wilson distinguishes between the social sciences and natural sciences, and yet argues for the overlap between all forms of knowledge? Is he saying that branches of knowledge are distinct, or not? Is he saying that all branches of knowledge are linked or not?

Essay Topic 2

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innovate in business has required the policy of planned obsolescence, where everything technological is designed to be superseded by new products in the future.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?

Essay Topic 3

What is Wilson's proposal for integrating consilience in education. How have schools or organizations tried to foster consilience? How would your education be different if it were based on consilient principles? Make a prediction about the future integration of consilience in higher education.

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