bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Christians and Muslims on Malta in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries
Authors: Ciappara Frans
Published: February 2017

Samuel P. Huntington has described the encounter between Christianity and Islam as the ‘clash of civilizations’, and so have Norman Daniel and R.W. Southern. This Manichean vision is the result partly of political and religious rivalry which demonizes ‘the other’. Such an interpretation has been challenged by scholars who emphasize a more complex reality and refer to ‘a shared discourse of the Ottoman and European worlds’.
Plurality in the Capital: The Christian Responses to London’s Religious Minorities since 1800
Authors: Wolffe John
Published: February 2017

On a late spring day in 1856 Prince Albert carried out one of the less routine royal engagements of the Victorian era, by laying the foundation stone of what was to become ‘The Strangers’ Home for Asiatics, Africans and South Sea Islanders’, located at Limehouse in the London docklands. The deputation receiving the prince was headed by the earl of Chichester, who was the First Church Estates Commissioner and president of the Church Missionary Society, and included Thomas Carr, formerly bishop of Bombay, Maharajah Duleep Singh, a Sikh convert to Christianity and a favourite of Queen Victoria, and William Henry Sykes, MP and chairman of the East India Company.
Sympathy for Mussulmans, Love for Jews: Emilie Loyson-Meriman (1833–1909), Hyacinthe Loyson (1827–1912) and their Efforts towards Interreligious Encounter
Authors: Berlis Angela
Published: February 2017

In 1905, Madame Hyacinthe Loyson published her travelogueTo Jerusalem through the Lands of Islam among Jews, Christians, and Moslems.In this work, Emilie Loyson, who had some experience as a journalist, described the couple’s travels in the Orient and their encounters with those of other religions, which – unusually for the time – took place on a footing of equality. This essay will first introduce the author, before turning to the religious and interreligious commitment of Emilie Loyson and her husband. Whilst in the 1870s they were engaged in ‘ecumenical’ efforts, over time their interest in interreligious encounter developed. The essay will examine – primarily from Emilie’s point of view – how the couple perceived Islam, and in particular Muslim women, as well as their understanding of Judaism and Eastern Christianity. Finally, it will ask what the couple were able to achieve.
Christians, Muslims and the State in Twentieth-Century Egypt and Indonesia
Authors: Stanley Brian
Published: February 2017

Surveys of the historical relationship between Christianity and other faiths often suggest that through a process of theological enlightenment the churches have moved from crusade to cooperation and from diatribe to dialogue. This trajectory is most marked in studies of Christian-Muslim relations, overshadowed as they are by the legacy of the Crusades. Hugh Goddard’sA History of Christian-Muslim Relationsproceeds from a focus on the frequently confrontational inter-communal relations of earlier periods to attempts by Western theologians over the last two centuries to define a more irenic stance towards Islam.1 For liberal-minded Western Christians this is an attractive thesis: who would not wish to assert that we have left bigotry and antagonism behind, and moved on to stances of mutual respect and tolerance? However laudable the concern to promote harmonious intercommunal relations today, dangers arise from trawling the oceans of history in order to catch in our nets only those episodes that will be most morally edifying for the present. What Herbert Butterfield famously labelled ‘the Whig interpretation of history’ is not irrelevant to the history of interreligious relations. In this essay I shall use the experience of Christian communities in twentieth-century Egypt and Indonesia to argue that the determinative influences on Christian-Muslim relations in the modern world have not been the progressive liberalization of stances among academic theologians but rather the changing views taken by governments in Muslim majority states towards both their majority and minority religious communities. Questions of the balance of power, and of the territorial integrity of the state, have affected Christian Muslim relations more deeply than questions of religious truth and concerns for interreligious dialogue.
American Scientists on the structure of social life amongst Baboons
Authors: Horr David Agee , Warshall Peter
Published: February 2017

If one watches a troop of baboons closely, the major categories of individuals present can soon be distinguished. The largest animais are invariably the adult males and, in some areas (such as Nairobi Park), their size is exaggerated by a very heavy mantle of fur around the heads and shoulders.

An adult male baboon has the distinction of possessing perhaps the largest canine teeth of his size in the animal kingdom. These have developed as a means of defence and are sufficiently impressive to keep most other animais at a distance.
The World Politics of World Hunger: A Study in Biopolitical Interactions
Authors: Schubert James N.
Published: February 2017

Human nutrition provides a subject area in which biology and politics interact in two respects. First, nutrition is a factor in human political behavior that may affect both individual decision-making performance and mass participation. Specific conditions, such as hypoglycemia, may affect individual performance, while inadequate energy intakes and qualitative deficiencies may influence mass behavior. Second, public policy affects the nutritional status of individuals and populations. Agricultural policy, food trade policy, nutritional intervention programs, foreign and domestic food aid, and social welfare policies are among the categories of governmental outputs that help determine nutritional conditions in populations and their component groups. Nutritional status, in turn, has feedback effects through mass behavior on political inputs. Thus, human nutrition presents a problem of biopolitical interactions that involves a mutually interdependent relationship with cybernetic properties.
Developments in Biopolitics in Finland
Authors: Vanhanen Tatu
Published: February 2017

Although some Finnish social scientists are interested in the biological aspects of human behavior and politics, biopolitics has not yet had much impact on political science in Finland. Most Finnish political scientists are in fact indifferent to biopolitics. They seem to think that it is just a fashionable scientific movement which will soon fade.
Teaching about Sex Differences in Human Behavior and the Biological Approach in General
Authors: Weisfeld Glenn E.
Published: February 2017

Teaching about the biological perspective on human behavior offers numerous benefits to the instructor. Students, however, are often plagued by numerous common misconceptions concerning genetic influences on behavior, political implications of sociobiology, and evolved sex differences. These are discussed in that order. Lastly, some books are recommended as texts and references.
Teaching Biomedical Policy to Undergraduates
Authors: Blank Robert H.
Published: February 2017

Biomedical choices are emerging as critical policy issues of the 1980s. Political pressures for cost containment, trends toward corporate medicine, and continuing problems of access and equity ensure biomedical issues a prominent place on the policy agenda. Students of political science should be familiar with the array of biomedical technologies that currently are challenging the tenets of medicine as well as the capacity of political institutions to resolve the resulting policy dilemmas. Based on this, a course in biomedical policy is overdue. This article outlines a course which is designed to clarify the public policy dimensions of biomedicine and develop analytical skills in the students so that they can better cope with these issues of public and personal importance. It describes some of the approaches and methods that I have found useful and summarizes a few of the problems one might expect to encounter in teaching biomedical policy.
Commentary on “…Let No One Split Asunder: Controversy in Human Genetic Engineering”
Authors: Curd Martin
Published: February 2017

Though not the first attempt to ameliorate a human genetic disease by modifying somatic cells, the experiments performed by Dr. Martin J. Cline on two women suffering from thalassemia (one in Jerusalem, the other in Naples) were the first and still the only ones to use rDNA techniques.1 In some respects the criticism and censure of Cline by the NIH resembles the case of Dr. Ian T. Kennedy.2 Both Cline and Kennedy were found guilty of having violated the NIH Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant DNA Molecules, but there is a crucial difference between the two cases. Cline attempted to implant genetically altered cells into human beings. Consequently, his work involved moral issues concerning the use of human subjects in biomedical experiments which go beyond the usual concerns over safety and control in rDNA research. In fact, I shall argue that the rDNA aspect of the Cline affair was relatively minor compared with the moral reasoning which guided the actions and judgments of Cline and his critics. Despite its importance for understanding the behavior of the participants, this ethical dimension does not receive adequate emphasis in Robin and Markle's account of the Cline episode within the framework of their four sociological perspectives (substantive, network, organizational, societal).
Ethical Issues and Premature Application of Gene Therapy
Authors: Lappé Marc
Published: February 2017

Professors Stanley Robin and Gerald Markle ably describe the sociological factors at work in Dr. Martin Cline's foray into gene therapy during the mid-1970s. Much of what transpired can be understood in terms of the dialectical tensions between clinicians and researchers. But there is a second tier of questions raised by Cline's conduct, questions which transcend the issues of simple improprieties and possible illegalities of his actions.
On the Relevance of Aristotle's Bioethics
Authors: Cornell John F.
Published: February 2017

There is a reasonable urgency today about clarifying the relationship between biology and human affairs. A growing genetic technology is an obvious reason for concern. But behind that is the real crisis, at once ethical and educational. The “moral” teachings that descend from the new scho~ls of biology - of which sociobiology may be considered representative - are easy deductions from rigid reductionist theories, requiring no inquiry about the limits of theory, and thus ready for popular consumption. Arnhart clearly recognizes the philosophical dimensions of our situation in his article “Aristotle's Biopolitics”. His suggestion that we begin our rethinking of bioethics with serious study of one of the greatest biologists and ethical thinkers seems to me a timely one. Modern scientific methods engender ceaseless advances and ceaseless controversies, but they ‘appear impotent to give us, as Aristotle did, a reasonable view of our own species’ place and purpose.
Final Causes and Instant Cases: A Comment
Authors: Salkever Stephen G.
Published: February 2017

I strongly agree with what I take to be Arnhart's basic claims: that Aristotle's teleological biology is plausible in the light of what we now think about good scientific practice, and that it provides a kind of basis or vocabulary for moral and practical deliberation that is lacking in nonteleological or reductionist biology. Arnhart's defense of these claims is important both because he suggests a more expansive notion of what counts as biological science and because he in effect challenges Macintyre's (1981) claim that Aristotle's biology is “metaphysical” and so cannot serve as a basis for theorizing about moral and political matters. Arnhart makes his case well, and I was especially instructed by his discussion of Sacks' work as an example of a teleological vocabulary applied to moral and psychiatric questions.
Technology and Politics in the Ecology of the Sahel
Authors: Schusky Ernest L. , Heinricher Peter
Published: February 2017

Recent technological and political changes in the Sahel resemble earlier innovations that have failed to increase production or achieve equity in distribution, but perceived needs for large-scale changes remain, based on numerous misperceptions of what occurred in the famine of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Drought, large numbers of deaths, and decimation of cattle herds have been stereotyped to justify large capital-intensive development projects. Large dams, cash crops, and complex controls of the desert are among the projected schemes to increase production. The thesis of this article is that if a valid perspective of what occurred to the Sahel ecology in the 1960s is constructed, then capital-intensive projects frequently encouraging commercialization of agriculture will be replaced by labor-intensive, small-scale projects that involve primarily subsistence farming. The possible surplus from subsistence patterns is likely to exceed the surplus of large-scale efforts for a variety of reasons.
The Politics of a Scientific Meeting: The Origin-of-AIDS Debate at the Royal Society
Authors: Martin Brian
Published: February 2017

The Royal Society of London held a scientific meeting in September 2000 focusing on two theories of the origin of AIDS: one, that it occurred through “natural transfer” of immunodeficiency virus from monkeys or chimpanzees to humans; and the other, that it occurred through iatrogenic transfer via contaminated polio vaccines used in Africa in the late 1950s. This meeting was the culmination of years of public contention over the polio-vaccine theory. Several dimensions of the politics of science are revealed by analysis of this issue, including the power of scientific editors, the use of the mass media, decisions regarding selection of speakers and organization of the meeting, and epistemological assumptions made by participants.
Culture, Social Minds, and Governance in Evolution
Authors: Phillips Claude S.
Published: February 2017

In the past quarter century, the concept of culture has undergone change as evolutionary scientists have come to include social behavior in their purview. Evolutionary psychology is the newest field to concern itself with culture by claiming that mostspecifichuman behaviors are generated by minds specifically designed for these behaviors—and not from a general-purpose mind—as a result of adaptations made during the Pleistocene. Thus, mental behaviors are explained as having formed independently of cultural learning. In defending the concept, however, the leading proponents practically slough off culture as significant in human affairs. I argue that they have neglected the powerful explanatory statement of Darwin regarding at least one general-purpose adaptation of social animals, namely, the instinct for sociability, a position supported by recent neurological studies. Expanding the Darwinian concept, modern research shows that (1) the human brain was selected for sociability, which explains the origin and strength of culture, as well as its variability; (2) the development of complex culture in a pre-human primate initiated the two-and-one-half million-year evolution to modern humans; and (3) there are political contributions to cultural evolution that rest on the nature of groups (competitive and cooperative).
The World Commission on Dams and trends in global environmental governance
Authors: Conca Ken
Published: February 2017

The World Commission on Dams marks a moment of real progress in the large-dams controversy. It does so in at least two ways: as a statement of the norms that should govern dam-related decision-making and as a process of dialogue between dam proponents and critics. Whether this progress translates into consistently better dam-related decisionmaking is a question that remains to be answered. Also unanswered is the larger question of whether the WCD experience will prove to be a replicable model for other environment-development controversies. The Commission emerged from a curious situation in which both dam builders and dam critics felt stymied in their ability to achieve their aims, and in which both saw opportunities in the idea of stakeholder dialogue. Such windows of opportunity may prove rare. The skillful leadership and interpersonal dynamics among the commissioners that helped forge a consensus document may be difficult to reproduce.
United States biodefense, international law, and the problem of intent
Authors: Enemark Christian
Published: February 2017

Since the anthrax attacks of 2001 in the United States, annual U.S. government spending on biodefense programs has increased enormously. U.S. biodefense was once exclusively the domain of military agencies and was aimed principally at protecting battlefield troops against the products of state-run biological warfare programs. Today, it is engaged in and promoted by a variety of government agencies contemplating “bioterrorism,” and it is aimed principally at protecting the American civilian population. I ask if certain U.S. biodefense policies, pointedly those funding “threat assessment” projects, make biological attacks paradoxically more likely by undermining international norms against deliberately causing disease. I conclude that they do and consider the ramifications of this answer.
Dollars, disease, and democracy: Has the Director's Council of Public Representatives improved the National Institutes of Health?
Authors: Burgin Eileen
Published: February 2017

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director's Council of Public Representatives (COPR) was established in 1998 as an advisory council to the NIH director and NIH's only wholly “public” advisory group. COPR's stated objective was, and remains, to strengthen and formalize public input into funding-allocation decisions for biomedical research by the NIH, the single largest sponsor of such research. Yet, to date, COPR's work and effectiveness have not been carefully explored. In beginning to fill this void, my goal is to contribute to the understanding of public involvement in the distribution of health research dollars. More specifically, I show that COPR has failed to promote public participation in the apportionment of biomedical research funds, but that it has been beneficially effective in some respects and likely could — and arguably should — be made more effective. The essay draws on interviews I conducted with former COPR members and discussions I initiated with executive branch employees familiar with COPR's mission, opportunities, impediments, and performance.
Psychophysiological Stress during International Crises: Research in Progress
Authors: Oots Kent Layne
Published: February 2017

Previous studies at the Program for Biosocial Research at Northern Illinois University utilized an electronic instrument to conduct voice analysis for the purpose of determining the amount of psychophysiological stress experienced by a political speaker. These studies then tested the technique on the speeches of three presidents during international crises: John F. Kennedy during the 1961 Berlin crisis, Lyndon B. Johnson during the crisis in the Dominican Republic, and Richard M. Nixon during the United States incursion into Cambodia.
Pathogen Proliferation: Threats from the Former Soviet Bioweapons Complex
Authors: Vogel Kathleen M.
Published: February 2017

This article outlines the proliferation threats of pathogen collections from the former Soviet biological weapons (BW) program and the inherent difficulties in safeguarding sensitive biological materials. It describes new U.S. government efforts to improve security conditions of these collections through the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Finally, the article analyzes these U.S. programs and offers additional policy recommendations to reduce the proliferation threat from these dangerous pathogens.
Inaccuracy and Bias in Textbooks Reporting Psychiatric Research: The Case of the Schizophrenia Adoption Studies
Authors: Joseph Jay
Published: February 2017

Mental health textbooks sometimes provide inaccurate information, typically supporting common beliefs in the field. Psychiatry and psychology textbooks' discussion of the schizophrenia adoption studies is examined. Particular attention is paid to the earlier studies, which helped pave the way for the current widespread acceptance of the importance of genetic factors influencing psychological trait differences. This article compares the accounts of 30 textbooks to the original studies they reviewed. Generally, problems with these textbooks' accounts include (1) the failure to critically assess the original researchers' methods and conclusions, (2) some textbooks' reliance on secondary sources, (3) the failure to discuss published critiques of the schizophrenia adoption studies, (4) inaccuracy in reporting the original findings, (5) the claim that studies finding nonsignificant results support the genetic position, and (6) a failure to discuss the potentially invalidating environmental confounds in the schizophrenia adoption studies (through the selective placement of adoptees). It is concluded that, in general, these textbooks have served to rubber-stamp mainstream psychiatry's questionable claims about the schizophrenia adoption studies at the expense of a thorough critical analysis.
Commentary On Articles by Charles F. Dasey and Thomas R. Dashiell On the Biological Defense Research Program (Bdrp)1
Authors: Rutman Robert J. , Disch Harry J.
Published: February 2017

In so far as any new technology or information in biology or biomedicine is also potentially relevant to biological warfare (BW), and therefore to the Biological Defense Research Program (BDRP), BDRP is equivalent to a biore-search program, making it, ipso facto, unnecessary. The papers by Dashiell and Dasey reviewed herein certainly present this equivalence and provide very little, if any, justification of BDRP as having a unique, distinctive military role requiring budgetary dispensations. In fact, the only specific military role mentioned for BDRP, that of protecting personnel, would utilize military means developed for chemical warfare.
Transmutation by Cole
Authors: Zilinskas Raymond A.
Published: February 2017

When I agreed to review L. Cole's book Clouds of Secrecy: The Army's Germ Warfare Tests over Populated Areas (PLS, February 1989), I did so because the subject is interesting and important. I did not know Cole, nor had I read any of his previous work. To the editor of the PLS and, implicitly, to its readers, I committed to appraise the book as fairly as I could. As anyone whose working life is spent writing knows, much work goes into producing a book. I regard criticizing a book as a serious responsibility, because I know the labor that the author has gone through before the first copy is printed.
Unexplored Territory: the Political, Bureaucratic and Financial Constraints Affecting Recommendations for Preventing Famine in Africa
Authors: Cohen John M.
Published: February 2017

If the millions of words being written to define famine, identify and debate its causes, and outline complex approaches to its early identification and prevention could be eaten there would be far fewer hungry people in the world. This is particularly the case for Africa. Already an enormous number of conference papers, journal articles, institutional monographs, and commercial books have been published on topics related to food shortages and famine on that continent. Beneath this generally available strata of publications lie a vast number of internal reports, studies and evaluations done by the staff of or consultants to international agencies, major donors and non-governmental agencies. (For example, simply consult the growing output on early warning systems and drought administration systems being produced by the staff and consultants to the Inter-Governmental Authority on Drought and Development located in Djibouti and created in 1986 to serve assist six drought prone countries of the Horn of Africa.)
The Full Table of Risk Factor Analysis Studies
Authors: Vestal Theodore M.
Published: February 2017

I thank the respondents for their thoughtful insights from such exotic places as Kenya, India, Southern California, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The geographical origins of the replies brought in by the broadly cast net of this journal underscore the global concern with the phenomenon of famine and its study. The objective of my article was to stimulate discussion about risk factor analysis that takes into account both FAD and entitlement approaches to famine. The four reviews represent an extensive and helpful array of responses that suggest further refinements of research possibilities utilizing the risk factor concept. All offered abundant food for thought about how to address the riddle of what to do about famine, and in their references, the respondents have included first-rate additions to a bibliography of recent famine studies.
In Defense of Enforcement of the Surrogate Contract: a Reply to Field
Authors: Hill John Lawrence
Published: February 2017

In deciding whether and to what extent surrogate parenting contracts should be recognized, states are faced with three legislative options. First, they may criminalize surrogacy, in effect punishing those who enter into or facilitate surrogate contracts by fine or imprisonment. Second, states may adopt the nonenforcement option. Under this approach, surrogate contracts are not subject to criminal sanction, but neither will they be enforced. The legal effect of such a rule is to leave the surrogate free to carry through with the contract or to refuse to relinquish custody of the child born of the arrangement as she wishes. In the event the surrogate decides that she wishes to keep the baby, the courts will decide the issue of parental rights in accordance with the best interests test much like that which is employed in divorce cases. This was the approach taken in In the Matter of Baby “M” (537 A.2d 1225 (N.J. 1988)). Finally, the third legislative alternative is regulation and enforcement of surrogate contracts. This would have the effect of requiring the surrogate to turn over the child she has borne for the intended parents even where she has changed her mind, a la Mary Beth Whitehead, and wishes to retain custody of the child.
Stress and Political Leadership
Authors: Robins Robert S. , Dorn Robert M.
Published: February 2017

The literature on stress and political leadership typically views such potential stressors as time-pressure, severe consequences for bad decisions, inadequate information, and conflicting demands as negative influences on political performance. We know, however, that many politicians thrive on or even require such circumstances. Drawing on medical, historical, psychiatric, psychological, and political science literature, this essay proposes that there are at least three major types of leaders in regard to potential stressors: sturdy warriors (who cope with or who even enjoy and are helped by events commonly reacted to by others as stressors), battle-hungry warriors (who are psychologically drawn to potential stressors and “cannot function,” well or badly, without them), and frail warriors (who are unable to cope with stressors). Subcategories, including psychological and political dynamics, are provided.
The American Abortion Controversy: Lessons from Cross-National Evidence
Authors: Nevitte Neil , Brandon William P. , Davis Lori
Published: February 2017

Analyses of American public opinion about abortion rarely consider what light other cases might shed on the U.S. controversy. This paper argues that there are striking parallels between the politics of abortion in the U.S. and Canada. These parallels extend beyond courts and interest groups; they also apply to public opinion. Gallup data indicate aggregate similarities in how both publics view the legalization of abortion in the last fifteen years, and World Values Survey data show that Americans and Canadians hold similar views about abortion even when the controversy is lifted out of its legal context. Probit analysis demonstrates that the same variables similarly predict where these publics stand on abortion when health and discretionary aspects of the debate are taken into account. Postmaterialist value orientations may provide important clues about what future direction the abortion debate in the U.S. may take.
Fetal Tissue Transplantation Policy in the United States
Authors: Vawter Dorothy E.
Published: February 2017

After decades of supporting fetal tissue research, in March, 1988 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) banned the use of federal funds for fetal tissue transplantation research in humans involving tissue from electively aborted fetuses. The ban was not imposed because it is unethical to transplant tissue from electively aborted fetuses; such tissue may be transplanted into animals. Nor was it imposed because it is unethical for women to donate tissue after elective abortion; women may donate such tissue for purposes other than transplantation into humans. The ban was narrowly focused on the transplantation of tissue from electively aborted fetuses into humans. It stemmed from two beliefs: (1) that it is wrong for women to abort their fetuses for the purpose of donation, and (2) that there is no way to prevent women from aborting their fetuses for the purpose of donation if the tissue may be donated for transplantation.
The “Vaccines for Peace” Program: Does It Really Help to Strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention?
Authors: Thränert Oliver
Published: February 2017

One of Erhard Geissler's main arguments supporting his proposed Vaccines for Peace program (VFP) refers to the intended strengthening of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). With a view to the real threat of proliferation of biological agents and the lack of verification measures in the convention, this goal is definitely praiseworthy. However, I doubt that VFP as originally outlined in the August, 1992 Politics and the Life Sciences article can achieve this. I have four concerns.
Presidents Preferred Sons
Authors: Betzig Laura , Weber Samantha
Published: February 2017

Trivers and Willard (1973) argued that, in polygynous species, parents “in good condition” should bias investment toward sons, while parents “in poor condition” should bias investment toward daughters. Biographical evidence on men in the U.S. executive branch—including presidents, vice presidents, and cabinet secretaries—suggests they produced more sons than daughters in the first cohort (Presidents Washington through Garfield), but roughly equal numbers of sons and daughters in the second cohort (Presidents Arthur through Reagan). The same pattern holds for presidents' fathers and sons. Presidents' wills reflect the pattern again: men in the first cohort (Washington through Garfield) favored their sons, overall, slightly more than their daughters; for men in the second cohort (Arthur through Reagan), that bias disappears.
ProCEID—Program for Controlling Emerging Infectious Diseases: Mission Statement
Authors: Committee ProCEID Steering
Published: February 2017

1. Article X of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction (BWC) requests States Parties to facilitate and to participate “in the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and…information for the use of bacteriological (biological) agents and toxins for peaceful purposes.” Article X, in addition, stipulates that the Convention “shall be implemented in a manner designed to avoid hampering the economic or technological development of the states parties…or international cooperation in the field of peaceful bacteriological (biological) activities” (United Nations, 1972).
The National Advisory Board On Ethics in Reproduction (Naber)
Authors: White Gladys B.
Published: February 2017

The Ethical Problems associated with the new reproductive technologies are well known: they have been aired in the media since the birth of the first “test tube” baby, Louise Brown, in 1978. The moral status of the human embryo outside the womb (available for manipulation as never before), the “rights of ownership” of human gametes transferred between individuals in fertility treatment, the appropriate use of prenatal and preconceptual diagnostic testing, the truthful disclosure of risks and success rates of fertilization and live births, and the very meaning of infertility remediation in an overpopulated society—these and other issues have been noted and debated worldwide for several decades.
Beyond the Science Wars: Contemplating the Democratization of Science
Authors: Kleinman Daniel Lee
Published: February 2017

Discussions of democratic involvement in science and technology are often marred by lack of clarity and consequent misunderstanding. In an effort to move beyond the bickering of the “science wars,” I outline several dimensions across which it is possible to distinguish cases of democratized science. In addition, I provide evidence from varied cases, which suggests that the inability of laypeople to grasp the subtle content, difficult concepts, and methodological complexity of science is not a valid basis for a priori rejection of efforts to democratize science. I suggest that the real obstacles to the democratization of science are rooted in widespread social and economic inequalities and an unexamined commitment to expert authority, and I provide some rudimentary proposals for overcoming these hurdles.
Linking Neuroscience to Political Intolerance and Political Judgment
Authors: Marcus George E. , Wood Sandra L. , Theiss-Morse Elizabeth
Published: February 2017

There is substantial evidence that intolerance arises from perceptions of difference. A prevailing view holds that even if intolerance is understandable as a defense mechanism, or as an attitude intended to ward off threatening groups and noxious activities, it often is the result of human irrationality and indulgence of prejudice. This conclusion is supported by studies that seem to demonstrate the apparent irrelevance of the actual level of threat to levels of intolerance. These studies show human actions attendant to diversity are caused by established convictions (i.e., prejudice) rather than by the degree of threat. However, informed by theoretical approaches provided by neuroscientists, we report findings that threat is, indeed, a provocative factor that modifies political tolerance in predictable ways. Previous studies defined threat as probabilistic assessments of the likelihood of bad events. When threat is defined as novelty and normative violations (i.e., as departures from expected, or normal, occurrence), then consistent relationships to intolerance are obtained.
In Expectation of Meta-Analysis
Authors: Ernst Cécile
Published: February 2017

Iam surprised and glad that our book, Birth Order (Ernst and Angst), which appeared in 1983, is still quoted in a controversial discussion. We wrote the book with little support and even less sophistication. By the vote-counting method, the result was unequivocal: birth order did not appear as an environmental factor with predictable effects on personality or psychiatric disorder. When the book was written, we were unable to use meta-analysis. If someone found it worthwhile and possible to reanalyze by meta-analysis the studies mentioned in our book or published later, the result of this effort could determine the value of doing any further research.
Birth Order and Revolutionary Leadership
Authors: Phillips Kay , Rejai Mostafa
Published: February 2017

Finding ourselves in general accord with the thrust of Frederic Townsend's meticulous and unsparing critique (this issue) of Frank Sulloway's Born to Rebel (1996), we devote this commentary to an amplification of some of Townsend's points.
Taking Born to Rebel Seriously: The Need for Independent Review
Authors: Townsend Frederic
Published: February 2017

My thanks to the commentators for their thoughtful analyses. I will respond to their comments below. I should point out that under the format for this roundtable discussion, I have not yet seen Frank Sulloway's response to my article. Any reply I might have to his response will therefore have to come later.
Feminism, the Naturalistic Fallacy, and Evolutionary Biology
Authors: Smuts Barbara
Published: February 2017

Arnhart argues that a scientific understanding of women's nature, achieved through primatology and related disciplines, can serve as a basis for judging social arrangements. Those arrangements that promote the expression of women's “natural potentials” should be encouraged. Based on this argument, the key issues are (1) how to determine the “natural” potential of women, and (2) how to use this information to judge social arrangements. I will begin by focusing on the second and more fundamental issue; I will return later to the first.
A Global Surveillance Program Might Solve Several Serious Problems
Authors: Geissler Erhard
Published: February 2017

There seems to be an obvious contradiction in the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). Whereas Article III reasonably requests restriction of transfer of biological warfare (BW) and toxin warfare (TW) agents, equipment, and means of delivery, Article X not less reasonably calls for peaceful international cooperation in microbiology. This contradiction became especially obvious in the late 1980s, for two reasons: (1) regional conflicts increased as one of the consequences of the peaceful end of the Cold War, with a corresponding increase in the threat of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and (2) the technology gap between North and South continued to expand, not least as a direct consequence of the rapid development of molecular biotechnology in industrialized countries.
The Politics of Epidemiological Surveillance
Authors: Rosenberg Barbara Hatch
Published: February 2017

Mark Wheelis makes a thoroughly scientific case for deterring the covert use of biological weapons through a program of global epidemiological surveillance, thoughtfully laid out in terms of function, organization, and goals. In tactical terms, however, it seems a bit like the tail of biological weapons control wagging the dog of the “other benefits”—as Dr. Wheelis recognizes in discussing the latter. The driving force for such a program would surely be its benefits for world public and economic health.
Fetal Protection Policies in the Workplace: Continuing Controversy in Light ofJohnson Controls
Authors: Blank Robert
Published: February 2017

Despite the Supreme Court ruling in theJohnson Controlscase that fetal protection policies that exclude women from workplaces deemed hazardous to the fetus are in clear violation of the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Amendment, the issue of fetal health remains on the policy agenda. This article summarizes the rationale behind fetal protection policies and the current scientific evidence over workplace hazards. It also discusses the disparate court response to these policies beforeJohnson Controlsand the confusing regulatory framework. Finally, it makes a case for including consideration of the paternal contribution to fetal injury in the workplace and calls for a balanced approach to accommodate both women's rights to employment and society's interest in healthy children.
The Human Genome Project: Social Policy Research Priorities
Authors: Annas George J. , Elias Sherman
Published: February 2017

Will the Human Genome Project'S (HGP) social policy research program function as an “enhancer” and “promoter” for the entire “sequence,” or will it result in missense and nonsense mutations? The jury, of course, is still out, but we believe it is more properly viewed as a key promoter that is integral to the proper functioning of the HGP itself.
The Evolution and Human Behavior Program at the University of Michigan
Authors: Smuts Barbara
Published: February 2017

In the Late 1960s and early 1970s, a revolution occurred in evolutionary biology when several investigators, including most notably W. D. Hamilton, R. L. Trivers, and G. C. Williams, began to apply Darwin's theory of natural selection to the social behavior of animals. This new approach to behavior, which came to be known as “sociobiology” after the title of E. O. Wilson's influential 1975 book, was rapidly applied to human, as well as nonhuman, animal behavior. These applications often represented a serious challenge to the theories of the social and behavioral sciences, many of which rested on the assumption that behavior could be profitably analyzed in terms of its effects on the group or species. Sociobiologists, in contrast, argued that an adequate understanding of animal, including human, societies can be gained only by viewing selection as operating at the level of the individual (and sometimes at the level of the gene) rather than at the group level. The resultant controversies continue to this day, and sociobiological approaches to human behavior have had an important impact on anthropology, psychology, and other behavioral sciences, including political science.
Book Reviews: Coddington et al. - The Crisis in Health Care: Costs, Choices, and StrategiesDean C. Coddington, David J. Keen, Keith D. Moore, and Richard L. Clarke San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991, 303 pp. US$30.95 cloth. ISBN 1-55542-273-X. Jossey-Bass Publishers, 350 Sansome St., San Francisco, CA 94104, USA.
Authors: Bonnicksen Andrea L.
Published: February 2017

Précis

The authors assume that costs can no longer be contained in the United States health care system and that the present system cannot be sustained beyond the near future. Three of the authors are affiliated with an applied economic research and consulting firm, and the fourth is president of the Healthcare Financial Management Association. They are trained in business and city planning. The bibliography lists articles from such journals as Hospitals, Business & Health, Business Insurance, and Medical Economics.

The book is directed to members of hospital governing boards and other hospital administrators, but it will be of interest to students of health policy. Part I highlights tensions between what the authors call the worlds of doctors and hospital administrators struggling to survive, on the one hand, and health care planners worried about spiraling costs on the other. Part II contains five chapters that suggest reasons for growing costs and that criticize cost shifting as a remedy.

In Part III the authors evaluate alternative health care systems by presenting four future scenarios: incremental change, universal access, consumer choice model, and single payer system. In these chapters they also approach the fundamental purpose of the book—to “help physicians, hospitals, and health plans take the next steps to position themselves for the future.” While not highly analytical, the book is a readable and thoughtful supplement to more abstract critiques of the impact of today's health care system on distributive justice.
Private-Sector Strategies for a Public Policy Crisis
Authors: Rochefort David A.
Published: February 2017

I was a few days late completing this review, as the book editor can attest. Yet I did not labor under an unreasonable deadline. Nor did the book languish upon myshelf unopened until a last minute sense of professional obligation stirred. The difficulty, rather, was that I had a hard time keeping the book in my hands long enough to read it through.
The Health Insurance Crisis and Scenarios for Reform
Authors: Thorsen Laurence
Published: February 2017

The central message of this timely book is that the U.S. health insurance system does not work and must soon undergo fundamental change; therefore, providers and payers must plan for such change. The configuration of the change will be up to policymakers in government and the private sector, but the possibilities can be narrowed down to four scenarios, each of which the authors analyze for its impact on participants.
Clear and Creative Assessment of the World Ecological Crisis
Authors: Rensenbrink John
Published: February 2017

This is a hard-hitting book. Cogently, engagingly, authors Gordon and Suzuki warn us that the course we as a species are now on must end in ecocide. It is a major strength of the book that it not only charts the physical, biological, and economic trends but shows the interlocking psychological patterns of denial and loss of will that together make the present situation look exceedingly grim.
Epidemic Field Investigation as Applied to Allegations of Chemical, Biological, or Toxin Warfare
Authors: Barss Peter
Published: February 2017

It is proposed that the established epidemiologic framework normally used for investigation of civilian epidemics can usefully be adapted to provide a more structured approach to future investigations of allegations of chemical, biological, or toxin warfare. Using this framework, investigations of such allegations during the past decade are reviewed. These investigations took place during the yellow rain affair in Laos and Kampuchea, the Iran-Iraq war, and the Iraq-Kurd war. Further allegations are likely and will require investigation.
Weapons of War or Ravages of Nature? Investigating the Use of CBW
Authors: Chevrier Marie Isabelle
Published: February 2017

The article by Peter Barss is a valuable contribution to the existing literature on the investigation of the use of chemical, biological, or toxin weapons (CBW).1 He constructs detailed procedures to investigate allegations of the use of any of these weapons from the perspective of epidemiology theory. Barss reviews the investigations of the alleged use of toxin weapons (“yellow rain”) in Laos and Cambodia, the use of chemical weapons by both sides in the Iran-Iraq war, and the use of chemical weapons by Iraq against its own Kurdish population. He argues persuasively that these inquiries would have been conducted more effectively if the teams had followed standard procedures for field investigations according to epidemiology theory.
Observing Supreme Court Oral Argument: A Biosocial Approach
Authors: Schubert James N. , Peterson Steven A. , Schubert Glendon , Wasby Stephen
Published: February 2017

Supreme Court oral argument (OA) is one of many face-to-face settings of political interaction. This article describes a methodology for the systematic observation and measurement of behavior in OA developed in a study of over 300 randomly selected cases from the 1969-1981 terms of the U.S. Supreme Court. Five sources of observation are integrated into the OA database at the speaking turn level of analysis: the actual text of verbal behavior; categorical behavior codes; aspects of language use and speech behavior events; electro-acoustical measurement of voice quality; and content analysis of subject matter. Preliminary data are presented to illustrate the methodology and its application to theoretical concerns of the research project.
Politics and Genetic Engineering
Authors: Blank Robert H.
Published: February 2017

THE PURPOSE OF THIS short note is to update readers on recent developments in, and political implications of, genetic engineering, a critical tool in the expanding field of biotechnology. Based on new understanding of the mechanisms of DNA, molecular biologists are now able to chemically cut genes or sets of genes from one organism and splice them into the DNA of another. This is called recombinant DNA (rDNA) technology. Although these techniques were first applied to bacteria and yeasts, in the last decade researchers have made remarkable strides in putting foreign genes into more complex plants and animals.
Tom Wiegele: Dedicated Promoter of Biopolitics
Authors: Blank Robert H.
Published: February 2017

Tom Wiegele will be sorely missed by all who knew him. No single person had more influence on my career than Tom. My first contact with him came in 1979 when he telephoned me to express his interest in my work in genetic technology and to invite me to serve as a discussant on a panel he was chairing. His sincere interest in my work was most welcome at that point and hastened my transition to biopolitical research.