American social scientists rarely ever use evolutionary concepts to explain behavior, despite the potential of such concepts to elucidate major social problems. I argue that this observation can be understood as the product of three influences: an ideologically narrowed political liberalism; a fear of “Social Darwinism” as a scientific idea, rather than a scientific apostasy; and a widely believed criticism of evolutionary thinking as deterministic, reductionistic, and Panglossian. I ask what is to be done to encourage social scientists to learn and to apply evolutionary lessons. I answer with four solutions. First, evolutionary social scientists should more effectively educate their non-evolutionary students and colleagues. Second, they should publicize, even popularize, accessible refutations of perennially misleading criticisms. Third, they should more credibly assure skeptics that evolutionary theory not only keeps the “social” in social science but better explains social behavior than can any individual-level theory, such as rational-choice theory. Fourth, they should recall that biology took generations to become Darwinian, and they must understand that the social sciences may take as long to become evolutionary.

Local and regional environments have for many centuries been seen as, or as being composed of, “natural resources,” which have generally been considered fully available for human use, irrespective of any use to which other species, purposefully or not, might put them. The global environment has more recently, though less routinely, been seen in this way. I examine full-human-use arguments in three widely credited philosophical traditions: the Judeo-Christian-liberal, the Aristotelian-Cartesian-rationalist, and the utilitarian or neoclassical economic. I find each tradition's full-human-use argument unsatisfactory. I then discuss, and ultimately recommend, an alternative, an all-species-use argument based on Albert Schweitzer's much admired but seldom adopted reverence-for-life ethic. I find revealed by this alternative argument a previously unnamed good, one worthy of honor, protection, and enlargement; I call this good “the commonwealth of life.” In conclusion, I consider important implications of accepting commonwealth-of-life reasoning, including foundational changes in ethics.

Over and above fairness, the concept of justice presupposes that in any community no one member's wellbeing or life plan is inexorably dependent on the consumption or exploitation of other members. Renunciation of such use of others constitutes moral sociability, without which moral considerability is useless and possibly meaningless. To know if a creature is morally sociable, we must know it in its community; we must know its ecological profile, its species. Justice can be blind to species no more than to circumstance. Speciesism, the recognition of rights on the basis of group membership rather than solely on the basis of moral considerations at the level of the individual creature, embodies this assertion but is often described as a variant of Nazi racism. I consider this description and find it unwarranted, most obviously because Nazi racism extolled the stronger and the abuser and condemned the weaker and the abused, be they species or individuals, humans or animals. To the contrary, I present an argument for speciesism as a precondition to justice.

BACKGROUND. Population-specific human-genetics research has become commonplace but remains controversial, as its results can affect public and personal perceptions of the ethnic, national, and racial groups studied. Choice of populations for study has generally seemed a function of scientific, logistical, or economic factors.

RESEARCH QUESTION. Has the identity of populations studied in the human-genetics research literature varied systematically, and, if it has, in what ways?

METHODS. I searched the PubMed database for population-genetics reports, calculating for each a population score, a genetics score, and a mutation score.

RESULTS. Some populations had been studied far more intensively than others. Many of the most frequently studied groups were ethnically defined and politically marginal in their home countries; some of these groups were involved in self-determination struggles. In the mutation-research literature, state-defined Muslim and Mediterranean populations prevailed.

CONCLUSION. Study-population selection may in some cases be explained by, or may complicate, political predicament.

In November 1998, Michigan voters rejected Proposal B, a citizen initiative that would have legalized physician-assisted suicide (PAS). Although polls had long indicated overwhelming support for PAS, support for Proposal B declined before the election. We analyzed exit-poll data to characterize opponents, supporters, and cross-over voters. We then compared our results with those from earlier research that examined attitudinal and socio-demographic influences. We found that many presumptive PAS supporters did not vote for Proposal B. These data may call into question prospects for similar initiatives.

Background. Sex-specific differences in attitudes and behaviors, arising from a division of human nature into male and female types, have been core findings of evolutionary psychology and are now among its key investigational presumptions. These differences have largely been ignored by mainstream political and social theories.

Method. I explored one potential path toward incorporation, using “Q” methodology to test for male-female differences in attitudes toward social power. A 33-factor survey was administered confidentially and in single-blinded fashion to 26 participants, 8 adult males and 18 adult females in Auckland, New Zealand. Nine élite participants were recruited from among wealthy families and the executive staffs of prominent businesses, while 17 non-élite participants were recruited from among the personal networks of university students.

Results. 957 acts of subjective prioritization were available for analysis. Sex-specific strategies consistent with the maximization of reproductive success through hypergamous marriage were significantly more pronounced among the non-élites, male and female, than among the élites. Culture-associated behaviors and ideologies were significantly more pronounced among élites, male and female, than among the non-élites.

Conclusion. Shared élite male-female interest in social control and hierarchy maintenance may affect mating strategies sufficiently to obscure more expected sex-specific differences in attitudes and behaviors.

Background. Research on attitudes toward genetics and medicine registers skepticism among minority communities, but the reasons for this skepticism are not well known. In the past, studies linked mistrust of the medical system to historical ethics violations involving minority groups and to suspicions about ideological premise and political intent.

Methods. To assess public knowledge, attitudes, and behavior regarding human-genetics research, we surveyed 858 Americans onsite in four community settings or online in a geographically nonspecific manner.

Results. Compared to participants as a whole, African Americans were significantly more likely to believe that clinical trials might be dangerous and that the federal government knowingly conducted unethical research, including studies in which risky vaccines were administered to prison populations. However, African Americans were also significantly more likely to believe that the federal government worked to prevent environmental exposure to toxicants harmful to people with genetic vulnerabilities.

Conclusions. Our data suggest that most Americans trust government to act ethically in sponsoring and conducting research, including genetics research, but that African Americans are particularly likely to see government as powerfully protective in some settings yet selectively disingenuous in others.