Primatology supports a feminist ethical naturalism rooted in evolutionary biology. Patriarchal exploitation can be condemned as contrary to women's natural needs and capacities, although prudence is required in recognizing how ecological circumstances limit the range of practicable reform. Donna Haraway's history of primatology, however, illustrates the tendency of some feminists to reject naturalistic realism in favor of nihilistic relativism. Such relativism is disastrous for the feminist position, because it deprives the feminist of any ground in nature for criticizing patriarchal customs. The scenario of “Woman the Gatherer” illustrates feminist naturalism in primatology. Judging female circumcision as frustrating the natural needs of both men and women illustrates the power of feminist naturalism for cultural critique.

Ideological behavior has traditionally been viewed as a product of social forces. Nonetheless, an emerging science suggests that ideological worldviews can also be understood in terms of neural and cognitive principles. The article proposes a neurocognitive model of ideological thinking, arguing that ideological worldviews may be manifestations of individuals’ perceptual and cognitive systems. This model makes two claims. First, there are neurocognitive antecedents to ideological thinking: the brain’s low-level neurocognitive dispositions influence its receptivity to ideological doctrines. Second, there are neurocognitive consequences to ideological engagement: strong exposure and adherence to ideological doctrines can shape perceptual and cognitive systems. This article details the neurocognitive model of ideological thinking and synthesizes the empirical evidence in support of its claims. The model postulates that there are bidirectional processes between the brain and the ideological environment, and so it can address the roles of situational and motivational factors in ideologically motivated action. This endeavor highlights that an interdisciplinary neurocognitive approach to ideologies can facilitate biologically informed accounts of the ideological brain and thus reveal who is most susceptible to extreme and authoritarian ideologies. By investigating the relationships between low-level perceptual processes and high-level ideological attitudes, we can develop a better grasp of our collective history as well as the mechanisms that may structure our political futures.

International concern with the ability of the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention to fulfill its purpose induced the treaty parties to explore the means to promote compliance with the treaty and to detect noncompliance. In September 1995, the Conference on Disarmament hosted a Special Conference to discuss the findings of the ad hoc group of governmental experts to identify and examine potential verification measures from a scientific and technical standpoint. This article analyzes the work of the Special Conference and the most contentious issues raised there, especially (1) objective criteria for permitted and prohibited activities; (2) the concept of a threshold quantity of agent; (3) technical assistance to States Parties; (4) export controls; (5) the use of a list of agents and toxins for facility declarations; (6) on-site measures to promote compliance; (7) the intrusiveness of these measures; and (8) the protection of sensitive information. Ultimately, the conference delegates endorsed a legally binding protocol to strengthen the treaty. The article concludes with a discussion of the trade-offs necessary to achieve consensus on such a protocol.

Vaccine trials for infectious diseases take place in a milieu of trust in which scientists, regulatory institutions, and volunteers trust each other to play traditional roles. This milieu of trust emerges from a combination of preexisting linkages embedded in the local and national political context. Using the case of failed vaccine trials in Hohoe, Ghana, we explore this milieu of trust by employing the concept of tandems of trust and control, with a particular focus on the perceived characteristics of the disease and the linkages formed. An analysis of qualitative interviews collected in Hohoe following the West Africa Ebola outbreak of 2014–2016 shows that the trust/control nexus in vaccine trials precedes the implementation of those trials, while both the characteristics of Ebola and the political context shaped the formation and breakdown of relationships in the trial network.

Although few companies are currently applying genetic tests or using genetic data, further developments in genetics will likely increase the role of genetics in the workplace. This article discusses the complex ethical issues raised by the variety of genetic tests that could become available and proposes guidelines for dealing with genetics in the workplace. It discusses how the results of genetic testing could be used for employment purposes, and argues that the existence of unequal bargaining power in the workplace limits the validity of consent as a basis for policymaking. Instead, two specific justifications for genetic testing in the workplace are proposed: the protection of health and the avoidance of harm to others. The author suggests that genetic testing should be permitted only in exceptional circumstances and that every genetic test should be evaluated on its scientific validity and submitted to rigorous review. Existing antidiscrimination law proves to be a useful model for examining the rationality and proportionality of genetic testing in the workplace.

Virtually all of the literature regarding liability for fetal health and well-being has concentrated on female behavior. Prosecution of women for “fetal abuse or neglect” has received widespread popular press coverage. Far less attention has been paid to the role of males in contributing to the health and welfare of newborns. This paper redresses this lack of attention by reviewing the ways in which males contribute to newborn health and by examining legal doctrine to determine if the same legal challenges that have been advanced against pregnant women are applicable to males as well. Questions are raised regarding the consequences of prosecuting males for their role in contributing to fetal harm.

Immigration has become a focal debate in politics across the world. Recent research suggests that anti-immigration attitudes may have deep psychological roots in implicit disease avoidance motivations. A key implication of this theory is that individual differences in disease avoidance should be related to opposition to immigration across a wide variety of cultural and political contexts. However, existing evidence on the topic has come almost entirely from the United States and Canada. In this article, we test the disease avoidance hypothesis using nationally representative samples from Norway, Sweden, Turkey, and Mexico, as well as two diverse samples from the United States. We find consistent and robust evidence that disgust sensitivity is associated with anti-immigration attitudes and that the relationship is similar in magnitude to education. Overall, our findings support the disease avoidance hypothesis and provide new insights into the nature of anti-immigration attitudes.

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.

Janus-like, biotechnology, like other high technologies, presents two sides to society. On the one hand, a benign, even benevolent countenance holds forth the promise of virtually unlimited possibilities for doing good. Yet, if proper care is not taken, this same technology can present a specter of chthonic forces, difficult to contain.

States’ policy decisions regarding the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 have often been explained as predominantly, if not solely, partisan. Might rival explanations also apply? Using a cross-sectional 50-state regression model, we studied standard political variables coupled with public-health indicators. This work differs from existing research by employing a dependent variable of five additive measures of ACA support, examining the impact of both political and socioeconomic indicators on state policy decisions. Expanding on recent empirical studies with our more nuanced additive index of support measures, we found that same-party control of a state’s executive and legislative branches was indeed by far the single best predictor of policy decisions. Public-health indicators, overwhelmed by partisan effect, did not sufficiently explain state policy choice. This result does not allay the concerns that health policy has become synonymous with health politics and that health politics now has little to do with health itself.

Given the complexity of the current nuclear age and the absence of work on deterrence under true multipolarity, interdisciplinary models can provide new perspectives on tailored deterrence. Drawing from recent findings in the life sciences, this article offers a cultural neuroscience approach to deterrence decision-making, with special attention given to the ways in which culture interacts with cognition and the security environment to shape behavioral outcomes during conflict. Since North Korea remains largely a “black box” in international relations, a cultural neuroscience perspective can provide valuable insight into the effects of cultural conditioning on perception and cognition within the context of nuclear deterrence on the Korean Peninsula. Through an analysis of the bureaucratic and military structures, leadership characteristics, and institutional landscapes shaping North Korean strategic culture, this article examines the influences of historical memory and cultural values, such as collectivism, honor, and face-saving, on political decision-making in Pyongyang.

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.

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

A theory of social stratification is proposed that was derived from combining two conceptual continuums, both referring to phenomena that appear to be genetically influenced: pro/antisociality and r/K selection. Pro/antisociality refers to behavioral tendencies epitomized at one end by altruism, and, at the other end, by victimizing behavior (particular violent offenses). r/K selection refers to a variety of physiological and behavioral traits, epitomized at the r-end by organisms that reproduce in large numbers, while committing minimal time and energy to the nurturing of each offspring, and at the K-end by organisms that reproduce in small numbers, but make maximum commitments to nurturing each offspring. The theory postulates that the space created by the right-angle intersection of these two variables gives rise to human social stratification. Variations in educational achievement, earnings, and occupational prestige within the theoretical space created by these two variables in industrial societies are hypothesized and discussed.

Born to Rebel (Sulloway, 1996) embeds a theory of birth order within an evolutionary perspective that gives a refreshing new twist to theorizing about family structure. Most past birth order “theorizing” is of the type that both begins and ends with “Isn't it interesting that….” In Rodgers and Thompson (1985/86), we documented birth order research on presidents and strippers, artists and assassins, hockey players and cigarette smokers; even the birth order of birth order researchers has been investigated. Sulloway (1996), in contrast, provided explicit mechanisms to explain why he believes that birth order plays an important role in revolutionary behavior. The mechanisms derive from sophisticated thinking about both evolution and family dynamics.

This article examines several trends that have combined to veil the new field of biotechnology in secrecy: the transformation of biotechnology from an essentially academic field characterized by strong norms of openness to a field with extensive corporate connections that have reached even to research in leading universities; the establishment of intellectual property rights for life-forms initiated by the landmark Supreme Court decision, Diamond vs. Chakrabarty; and the limiting of public access to information about the genetically altered organisms whose use in agriculture, industry, and medicine falls under government controls. The article also examines the effects of the U.S. biotechnology industry's demand for secrecy on the negotiations for a protocol to the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, particularly the turn from requirements for transparency to protection of opacity with respect to biotechnology and other biological processes, equipment, and production.