Patriotism may be interpreted as one brand of human altruism. Contemporary evolutionary theory suggests that the roots of human altruism lie in kin selection. However, patriots in contemporary large-scale societies make their patriotic sacrifices on behalf of groups that are composed predominantly of non-kin. This fact appears to call into question the view that human altruism is founded on kin selection. This article attempts to resolve the problem by linking kin recognition cues to the socialization process. The result is a theory which integrates kin selection and socialization as foundations of human altruism. Since patriotism is a noteworthy example of human altruism, and one especially relevant for political science, the theory is applied to patriotism in order to generate hypotheses about the process of patriotic socialization.

Languages are territorial. They tend to occupy homogeneous, well bounded areas. When they do not, they lessen their chances of survival, especially if they are languages of minority groups. Reaching beyond the usual sociological causes of this phenomenon, this article searches the neurophysiological and the psychological literature for explanation of the tendency of closed, equalitarian systems with a high density of communication to move toward unilingualism. The search is guided by the questions: are bilinguals less brain-lateralized than unilinguals? Are different languages stored in different “containers” in the bilingual memory? Are the reaction times for coding and encoding slower in a second language than in a dominant language, slower in multilingual compared to unilingual settings? What are the psychological costs and benefits of bilingualism?

The hypothesis that the bilingual brain is different from the unilingual brain is not supported by the literature, but some fascinating studies keep the question open. Only two sets of findings emerge to offer likely explanations of language territoriality: the findings that measure the declining level of performance in a second as compared to a first language when the complexity of the task is increased, and the findings that show multilingual communication to be less efficient, due to interferences and delayed reaction times, than the same communication in a single language.

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.

This article examines the development of generic cancer risk assessment guidelines, or cancer policy, from 1976-1984. Risk assessment is considered the objective determination of the degree of risk from a substance. Risk management is the subjective determination of acceptable risk. However, uncertainties in the scientific foundations of cancer policy necessitate risk assessment inference choices, for example, over appropriate dose-response extrapolation models. Those choices are only partially scientific; they are also partially political. There is, as a result, an inevitable mixture of facts and values in cancer policy. The article explores ten inference controversies and evaluates how nine cancer policy documents resolved those controversies. It then traces the course of cancer policy development, showing how the Carter and Reagan administrations produced policies with difference emphases and considers several major challenges to cancer policy. The article then provides several justifications for cancer policy in the face of those challenges. It suggests, in the conclusion, that the controversies are unlikely to be resolved by science alone and politics will continue to influence the content of cancer policies.