Like other social animals, humans play adaptively important games, and current evolutionary theory predicts special-purpose, domain-specific cognitive mechanisms for playing such games. We offer a functional analysis of the information requirements for successfully playing one important social game, the “hawk-dove” conflict-of-interest game, developing new graphic conventions for doing so. In particular, we address the orders of recognition necessary for successfully playing such games, showing that there are adaptive advantages of capacities for first, second, third, and fourth such orders, but no more. We suggest that first-order recognition is not only the most basic in analytic terms but is likely to have been the first to evolve, with subsequent orders added later in evolution.

This study analyzes the issue attention cycle for print and online media coverage of a scientific publication examining the deaths of Chinese factory workers due to lung damage from chronic exposure to nanoparticles. The results of the nanoparticle study, published in 2009, embody news values that would make the study a prime candidate for press coverage, namely, novelty, negativity, controversy, and potential widespread impact. Nevertheless, mentions of the event in traditional English-language print media were nearly nonexistent. Online media, on the other hand, gave the story greater coverage. This case study exemplifies why online media may not be bound to the same issue attention cycle that print media are for controversial scientific events.

The U.S. public’s trust in scientists reached a new high in 2019 despite the collision of science and politics witnessed by the country. This study examines the cross-decade shift in public trust in scientists by analyzing General Social Survey data (1978–2018) using interpretable machine learning algorithms. The results suggest a polarization of public trust as political ideology made an increasingly important contribution to predicting trust over time. Compared with previous decades, many conservatives started to lose trust in scientists completely between 2008 and 2018. Although the marginal importance of political ideology in contributing to trust was greater than that of party identification, it was secondary to that of education and race in 2018. We discuss the practical implications and lessons learned from using machine learning algorithms to examine public opinion trends.

One does not have to be a natural scientist or a science writer to appreciate the possible benefits of biotechnology for the developing countries, but one cannot be a social scientist without being apprehensive about the costs and unforeseen consequences these almost miraculous advances may entail. In the past few decades, it has become obvious that development or modernization is much more complex and harder to achieve than was often supposed when decolonization inspired hope that economic growth could be achieved rapidly, and that with it would come social as well as material progress. In most, though not all, of the developing countries, sustained and balanced economic growth has so far not been attained, for reasons that include inability to control population growth, poor climate and soil conditions, inadequate energy resources, and—no less important—the difficulty of transforming and adapting traditional cultural values and social structures. These deeply entrenched social conditions often frustrate efforts of reform, whether they are aimed at increasing average per capita income or at assuring fair distribution of the benefits of economic growth.

This study investigates the emotional and behavioral effects of interpersonal online communication, focusing on the controversy surrounding the loosening of restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research. The issue, central to national and statewide elections in 2008, generated heated debate among candidates and voters and evoked strong emotional sentiments among partisans. Using the theory of affective intelligence, this study proposes a predictive model connecting levels of enthusiasm and anxiety with behavioral and information-seeking outcomes. Cognitive appraisal theory is also employed to provide a role for political emotion in accounting for interactive media effects. To investigate the ways that online deliberation may influence discussions surrounding stem cell research, a between-subjects experimental study was conducted that systematically varied the tone of feedback received (reinforcing or challenging) and type of interaction (synchronous or asynchronous) experienced by users. Results indicate that emotional responses play a significant role in predicting behavioral intentions arising from the user-to-user interactive experience.

Frederic Townsend's critique of Born to Rebel (Sulloway, 1996) is based on an unfortunate pattern of misrepresentation and faulty empirical methods. First, the historical data in Born to Rebel are neither unrepresentative nor undisclosed. They were compiled with the help of 110 expert raters, who validated their representative nature and operationalized the principal outcome measures. Second, birth order is moderately associated with political radicalism, especially in real-life and within-family studies. Third, the meta-analytic data are statistically compelling for various behavioral attributes, although effect sizes are generally modest. Fourth, recent studies using large samples and anchored scales demonstrate the influence of birth order on a wide variety of personality traits, especially in within-family comparisons. In addition, the relationship between birth order and openness to radical innovation—highlighted in Born to Rebel—has been replicated by other researchers. Because Townsend fails to employ formal methods of hypothesis testing—relying instead on selected anecdotal examples, adversarial tactics, and an inadequate grasp of statistical principles—he has drawn numerous false conclusions about the influence of birth order.

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.

This article updates the Somit et al. (1980) survey of literature in biology and politics. The flow of work continues at a growing rate. In the period from January 1, 1980 to December 31, 1981, at least 125 items have appeared: six books; forty-four articles, chapters in books, or monographs; sixty-four conference papers; three unpublished, undelivered manuscripts; eight Ph.D. dissertations or master's theses. Over this twenty-four month span, there have been twenty-nine “new entrants,” persons who have not previously authored a work in biology and politics.

This article integrates theory and data culled from two largely unrelated subdisciplines—biopolitics and constitutional politics—to provide a “bioconstitutional” overview of power relationships among Homo sapiens. That overview features three aspects of constitutional configuration: (1) the biopsychological, evidence of which is drawn chiefly from neuroscience, primatology, biochemistry, and championship chess play; (2) the biosocial, evidence of which is drawn chiefly from gene-culture coevolutionary analysis, anthropology, social psychology, jurisprudence, and political science; (3) the biopolicy aspect, evidence of which is drawn exclusively from the American scene, most particularly Supreme Court decision making involving reproductive choice and governmental constraints on gene-cloning. Constitutionalism is conceived as a thought-action field theory, whose values are not only dynamic and functional, but also both politically influential and subject to political influence. Bioconstitutionalism supplies the requisite life science context for these patterns, and itself presents notable feedback features as humans acquire greater capacity to order their adaptive strategies through biological intervention programs.

Because some of the language that follows is unconventional, it may be useful to clarify terms at the outset. The term biocracy as used here has two meanings, or more accurately, has two aspects to an inclusive meaning. The inclusive meaning is the influence of life forces on human social behavior, notably political behavior. The first, and basic, aspect of biocracy pertains to the actual influence of life forces on human society whether or not perceived or understood. The second aspect refers to the perceived effects on society of the findings and applications of the life sciences. Perceived effects mayor may not be consistent with actual influences; they may nonetheless shape popular attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviors. To the extent that life forces are deterministic they shape the character of societies. The extent to which human social behavior is biologically determined is largely unknown. At the very least, life forces appear to set limits within which human culture may select various options.

Many international conflicts are recurrent, and many of these are characterized by periods of violence, including wars, that are hard to describe as planned products of rational decision-making. Analysis of these conflicts according to rational-choice international-relations theory or constructivist approaches has been less revealing than might have been hoped. We consider the possibility that emotive causes could better explain, or at least improve the explanation of, observed patterns. We offer three emotive models of recurrent conflict and we outline a method by which the reliability of emotive explanations derived from these models could be tested prospectively.

This article examines deforestation-induced environmental change in the Southern Region of Malawi. The political ecology approach is used to critique this change, assessing how colonial and postcolonial forestry policies affected the landscape. It is argued that non-participatory, “top-down” government programs disempowered Malawi's peoples and allowed the environment to degrade. The Blantyre Fuelwood Project shows how the politics of land use predicate environmental change. It is argued that government implemented, “top-down” approaches failed because they did not integrate local communities. The result has been local opposition to government programs, passive resistance, and deteriorating environmental conditions. The article critiques Malawi's forestry policies since colonial times, analyzes the political ecology of the Blantyre Fuelwood Project, and concludes with the hope that newly implemented “bottom-up” programs that incorporate local communities will make Malawi's environment more sustainable.

In the past decade, international actors have launched “brain projects” or “brain initiatives.” One of the emerging technologies enabled by these publicly funded programs is brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), which are devices that allow communication between the brain and external devices like a prosthetic arm or a keyboard. BCIs are poised to have significant impacts on public health, society, and national security. This research presents the first analytical framework that attempts to predict the dissemination of neurotechnologies to both the commercial and military sectors in the United States and China. While China started its project later with less funding, we find that it has other advantages that make earlier adoption more likely. We also articulate national security risks implicit in later adoption, including the inability to set international ethical and legal norms for BCI use, especially in wartime operating environments, and data privacy risks for citizens who use technology developed by foreign actors.

We test a method for applying a network-based approach to the study of political attitudes. We use cognitive-affective mapping, an approach that visually represents attitudes as networks of concepts that an individual associates with a given issue. Using a software tool called Valence, we asked a sample of Canadians (n = 111) to draw a cognitive-affective map (CAM) of their views on the carbon tax. We treat these networks as a series of undirected graphs and examine the extent to which support for the tax can be predicted based on each graph’s emotional and structural properties. We find evidence that the emotional but not the structural properties significantly predict individuals’ attitudes toward the carbon tax. We also find associations between CAMs’ structural properties (density and centrality) and several measures of political interest. Our results provide preliminary evidence for the efficacy of CAMs as a tool for studying political attitudes. The study data are available at https://osf.io/qwpvd/?view_only=6834a1c442224e72bf45e7641880a17f

Background. Institutions are hard to define and hard to study. Long prominent in political science have been two theories: Rational Choice Institutionalism (RCI) and Historical Institutionalism (HI). Arising from the life sciences is now a third: Evolutionary Institutionalism (EI). Comparative strengths and weaknesses of these three theories warrant review, and the value-to-be-added by expanding the third beyond Darwinian evolutionary theory deserves consideration.

Question. Should evolutionary institutionalism expand to accommodate new understanding in ecology, such as might apply to the emergence of stability, and in genetics, such as might apply to political behavior?

Methods. Core arguments are reviewed for each theory with more detailed exposition of the third, EI. Particular attention is paid to EI’s gene-institution analogy; to variation, selection, and retention of institutional traits; to endogeneity and exogeneity; to agency and structure; and to ecosystem effects, institutional stability, and empirical limitations in behavioral genetics.

Findings. RCI, HI, and EI are distinct but complementary.

Conclusions. Institutional change, while amenable to rational-choice analysis and, retrospectively, to critical-juncture and path-dependency analysis, is also, and importantly, ecological. Stability, like change, is an emergent property of institutions, which tend to stabilize after change in a manner analogous to allopatric speciation. EI is more than metaphorically biological in that institutional behaviors are driven by human behaviors whose evolution long preceded the appearance of institutions themselves.