The uses of natural selection argument in politics have been constant since Charles Darwin’s times. They have also been varied. The readings of Darwin’s theory range from the most radically individualist views, as in orthodox socio-Darwinism, to the most communitarian, as in Peter Kropotkin’s and other socialist perspectives. This essay argues that such diverse, contradictory, and sometimes even outrageous political derivations from Darwin’s theory may be partially explained by some incompleteness and ambivalences underlying Darwin’s concepts. “Natural selection,” “struggle for existence,” and “survival of the fittest” are open concepts and may suggest some hierarchical and segregationist interpretations. Circumstantially, Darwin accepted social “checks,” such as discouraging marriage of “lower” individuals to prevent them from reproducing, in a vein of Malthusian politics. This makes Darwin’s theory of selection by struggle collide with his theory of social instincts, by which he explains the origins of morality. It also favors reading Darwin’s On the Origin of Species or The Descent of Man from opposite, mostly ideological perspectives. Darwin’s position is ambivalent, although hardly unreasonable. The recognition he makes of social instincts, as well as the use of the concept of artificial selection, entails accepting the role of human consciousness, by which social evolution cannot be reduced to natural evolution, as socio-Darwinians did next and as some neo-Darwinists seem to repeat. On these grounds, this essay argues the inadequacy of the conventional model of natural selection for understanding politics. If we want to describe politics in Darwin’s language, artificial rather than natural selection would be the concept that performs better for explaining the courses of politics in real society.

Knowledge of evolutionary influences on patterns of human mating, social interactions, and differential health is increasing, yet these insights have rarely been applied to historical analyses of human population dynamics. The genetic and evolutionary forces behind biases in interethnic mating and in the health of individuals of different ethnic groups in Latin America and the Caribbean since the European colonization of America are still largely ignored. We discuss how historical and contemporary sociocultural interactions and practices are strongly influenced by population-level evolutionary forces. Specifically, we discuss the historical implications of functional (de facto) polygyny, sex-biased admixture, and assortative mating in Latin America. We propose that these three evolutionary mechanisms influenced mating patterns, shaping the genetic and cultural landscape across Latin America and the Caribbean. Further, we discuss how genetic differences between the original populations that migrated at different times into Latin America contributed to their accommodation to and survival in the different local ecologies and interethnic interactions. Relevant medical and social implications follow from the genetic and cultural changes reviewed.

Partisans in the American electorate are affectively polarized, which coincides with the tendency for partisan geographic sorting. Could mate selection pressures contribute to this geographic tendency, and how might they interact with out-party affect? I propose a model in which an individual’s perception of their mate success in a niche is key. I argue that perceived mate success is a function of a niche’s partisanship and one’s out-party affect, which in turn, incentivizes sorting. The model is partially tested with conjoint experiments on multiple U.S. samples. Results show that partisans perceive a lower probability of mate success in niches with greater shares of out-partisans and that mate success interacts with negative out-party affect. I also replicate findings on political mate choice preferences with a more appropriate method. Lastly, this project links instrumentality and affect, which is a departure from past work. In doing so, it contributes to research on the consequences of mate pressures for political behavior.

In June of 1991, a team of experts from the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) inspected an Iraqi facility at Samarra, known as the “Muthanna State Enterprise for Pesticide Production.” Its inspection revealed a chemical weapons factory (United Nations, 1991). Inspectors found mustard gas and organophosphorus nerve agents, types GB and GF, as well as tabun—agent GA (CBW News, 1991). They estimated that the facility had the capacity to produce 2.5 tons of sarin and 5 tons of mustard gas per day. According to media reports, “dozens” of companies were implicated in the construction and production processes of the facility, including companies originating from Austria, France, Germany, India, Switzerland, the United States, and seven other countries (CBW News, 1991; Independent, July 17, 1991).

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.

At the outset I should admit that I am more positively disposed toward Sulloway's (1996) magnum opus than is the author of the target article (see Simonton, 1997). My positive disposition stems from three sources—substantive, theoretical, and methodological. Concerning the first source, I am more receptive to the notion that birth order may bear some relation to various forms of exceptional achievement. Galton (1874) was the first behavioral scientist to report such an empirical linkage, and his findings have been replicated and extended many times (Simonton, 1994). Indeed, I am among those who have discovered some of the relationships.

Political philosophers have doubted the compatibility of various major values, such as equality and freedom. Ethnographic and historical evidence has indicated the presence of (1) economic equality and individual freedom in the absence of civil peace in segmentary societies based on self-help; (2) economic equality and civil peace in the absence of individual freedom in corporate societies; and (3) individual freedom and civil peace in the absence of economic equality in mercantile and capitalist societies. However, little if any evidence has documented all three — economic equality, individual freedom, civil peace — in stable coexistence. By way of delineating the relations between and among the values in question, I offer “The Iron Law of Politics,” which asserts that economic equality, individual freedom, and civil peace cannot all exist simultaneously in any society, although any two of the three can.

This paper has four parts. First, I begin my examination of the aerial surveillance measure by reviewing the work by VEREX on this measure. Second, I discuss aerial surveillance as it relates to UNSCOM's mission in Iraq specifically. Third, I make some general observations about the applicability of this measure to detecting biological facilities and activities. Last, I comment on the utility of this measure for UNSCOM and international biological arms control.

Though Hamilton's rule is commonly interpreted as relating to two individuals, an alternative interpretation is that it can apply to an altruistic act with respect to a large group of related persons, such as an ethnic group. Then provision of a public good to such a group can be explained by Hamilton's rule. An important class of public goods is the provision of a “legal system” for the group. Provision of this good can have positive feedback effects: as there is more enforcement, it pays to define more complex and valuable rights, and in turn such rights lead to larger and more effective societies. As societies become larger, the ability to enforce rights increases because the number of enforcers increases. However, as in many other human activities, there may be two conflicting systems for provision of this good. There is the evolutionarily old system that would involve face to face transactions, often with kin. There is also a newer, rule-governed legal system for impersonal exchanges. These may be in conflict. The older rules may sometimes frustrate the more efficient newer system. Moreover, those persons who benefit from kin-based transaction networks may resist the creation of a formal legal system. I also note that altruism within the group may lead to xenophobia outside the group and thus to ethnic conflict. Finally, I discuss some evidence consistent with this analysis.