Abstract: H indsight is a powerful tool in the hands of the historian Because evolutionary theory turned out to be basically correct, anyone who opposed it in the nineteenth century must have been a closed-minded bigot Hence, anyone who opposes sociobiology today is equally obstructing scientific progress In order to decrease the bias inherent in my investigations, I have added a third theory to the equation, an unsuccessful theory, phrenology In the first half of the nineteenth century, Franz Josef Gall suggested that there might be some correlation between the shape of a person's skull and his mental abilities We now know that this view is nonsense As might be expected, phrenology degenerated into quackery Hence, its early supporters must have been gullible fools But at the height of the movement, phrenologists claimed among their numbers some of the greatest names of the day: John Quincy Adams, Prince Albert, Alexander Bain, Balzac, Paul Broca, Charlotte Bront~, Henry Clay, Comte, George Eliot, David Ferrier, Marx, Metternick, Edgar Allen Poe and Mark Twain, not to mention four early evolutionists: Etienne Geofroy Saint-Hilaire, Robert Chambers, Herbert Spencer, and AR Wallace Both phrenology and evolutionary theory started off as genuine scientific theories Serious scientists could be found arrayed on both sides of both issues However, from our contemporary point of view, Gall lost and Darwin won What did the phrenologists do wrong? What did the evolutionists do right? Could anyone at the time have been able to predict that evolutionary theory would succeed and phrenology fail? A strong tendency exists to conclude that Darwin's great achievement was to devise a theory which was basically correct and Gall's failure was to come up with a set of ideas which were crudely mistaken What Galldid wrong was tobe wrong Scientific theories which contain a large element of truth continue to prosper while those which are fundamentally in error either drop out of sight or degenerate into some form o f pseudoscience Hence, the message for the sociobiologists is--be right If the views now being urged by the sociobiologists are reasonably close to the truth, the sociobiological bandwagon will turn into a victory parade If not, it will degenerate into a traveling medicine show However, if the history of phrenology and evolutionary theory have anything to teach us, it is that the truth of new theories as they are originally set out is not all that important Phrenology in the first half of the nineteenth century was no further from the truth than the theory of evolution, which became widely accepted in the second half What really determines the success or failure of new scientific theories is how advocates of these views continue to conduct themselves They must be conceptually flexible, socially cohesive, and terminologically rigid The role of evidence in science is too obvious to belabor, but evidence never totally constrains the freedom of scientists in formulating their theories As RS Westfall has shown, the fudge factor is just as important Any scientist who is not a "master wriggler," to use Darwin's phrase, will see his views refuted almost immediately Scientists can succeed only if they are willing to break a few methodological rules, sometimes every rule in the book However, they cannot finagle at all costs Falsifiability does matter in science but not the falsifiability of disembodied propositions What really counts is the falsifiability of scientists To be successful, a scientist must be able to recognize clear threats to his position and respond appropriately But the proper response to imminent refutation is not admitting defeat; it is changing one's position while retaining one's original terminology Successful scientists are those who master the art of judicious finagling

Abstract: The evidence does not substantiate the predictions of social irresponsibility. But the relationship between human potential ideology and behavior of participants requires further attention than these preliminary findings. Even if it is more firmly established that participants in these trainings do in fact reach out to others by following their own interests, material abundance may be a necessary precondition. The ethic of enlightened self-interest may not be a workable ethic for hard times when material scarcity presages the war of all against all.

Abstract: T he religious wars of the seventies have involved accusations that new religious movements brainwash their converts. They are alleged to be using mind control in seducing young persons from conventional familial processes and career plans so as to psychologically imprison them in communes and monasteries. Increasingly the state is sanctioning the forcible abduction of adult converts for purposes ofcounterindoctrination or deprogramming. The involvement of the state in facilitating such reeducation programs has been both active and passive: passive through refusal of local courts to prosecute the perpetrators of extralegal abductions; active because of a more recent tendency of lower-court judges to issue thirty-day conservatorships to parents of allegedly incompetent religious converts. Parents who obtain conservatorships are then empowered to receive the assistance of police in forcibly seizing the converts and turning them over to deprogrammers. Such conservatorships are frequently granted in ex parte "hearings" in the judge's chambers from which the potential conservatee and his legal representative are excluded. In such a closed hearing the proposed target of the conservatorship has no opportunity to challenge information which parents, deprogrammers, and apostate devotees may impart to a judge. Nor may the religious converts present countertestimony regarding the impugned cult or their own mental state. In addition to existing state laws facilitating these practices, several state legislatures have been asked to consider new legislation supporting the forcible removal of adults from cults. The Vermont senate, moreover, has recently passed a bill empowering judges to issue conservatorships in such cases without adversary hearings. These procedures have raised serious questions with respect to the issues of due process of law and freedom of religion. Are there any circumstances under which the administrative processes of the state can properly be used to Thomas Robbins and Dick Anthony

Abstract: O uting the last 15 years, political activity and policy enactments in aging have grown remarkably. Membership in aging-based organizations has increased by a factor of several hundreds to where it now approximates 10 million. New cadres of professionals have created and expanded aging specializations in planning, social service delivery, research, and training. Public agencies on aging, some with cabinet level status, are in place nationwide at all levels of government. Legislative committees on aging at the national and state levels are now well established, both lending political legitimacy to the aging and promoting their policy interests.

Abstract: D O older people really have enough in common with each other to bind them together and set them off from the rest of the adult population as a political entity? Three things are usually discussed as factors in the potential political mobilization of the aged: their expanding numbers, their political behavior, and their common concerns. The first, the expansion of the aged population, is an empirical reality. The number of people over 65 has grown from 3 million in 1900 to 22 million in 1975; more importantly, their proportion of the total population has increased from 4 percent to 10 percent in that same period. The second factor, the political attitudes, partisanship, voting patterns, organizing efforts, and other political resources of the aged, is much more debated and debatable, and we will not attempt to address these issues. The common concerns of the aged, however, are often simply taken for granted. We hear that this segment of the population shares not only chronological age, large numbers, and healthy voter turnout, but that they share needs and problems which form the basis for their potential political mobilization.

Abstract: The right to hear arms is an old traditional right and many Americans historically and currently have availed themselves of the privilege. The exact number who do so is not known. In most states the carrying of a concealed weapon requires a permit, but all who carry weapons obviously do not apply for permits. Clearly, more information is needed about guns and how they are used in our cities if we are to understand and respond to this dimension of urban violence. We lack information on the relationship between guns and violence and the type of persons who have and carry guns.

Abstract: Sexuality, as one of the more powerful human instincts, has often been construed as a dangerous and potentially disruptive force in human societies. Indeed, in those dominated by Judeo-Christian culture, sexuality has been viewed as fundamentally subversive of the moral order, its existence only to be tolerated under the constraint of many taboos, prohibitions, and proscriptions. Sex has characteristically been viewed as a powerful force, more likely than almost any other to lead men away from God, and Christianity has therefore tended to seek the close regulation and even at times the suppression of sexuality rather than its celebration. Alone among the human instincts it has been a need which Christian charity has felt no incentive to meet as part of its witness. While the alleviation of pain, cold, hunger, and thirst have often found a significant place as Christian duties to be fulfilled as part of the very act of evangelism, the alleviation of sexual desire--no matter how pressing or intense--has not. Meeting that need, except within the trammelled confines of the marriage bed and even then preferably only for the procreation of the species, has been viewed as polluting and defiling. Charity in respect of sexual needs not only has not been seen as a means of saving souls from perdition, but as likely rather there to consign both donor as well as recipient. So strongly has this view held that while contraventions of traditional sexual morality have figured as part of the innovatory doctrine and practice of various sects and heresies, only in modem times has a group born in the Christian tradition come to revise its theology of sexuality to the point where sexuality is seen not as a route to damnation, but a means of salvation. The group in question is known as the Children of God, and ] propose a discussion of this extraordinary innovation in evangelism through a consideration of the nature of the Children of God and its earlier strategies of witness, and to show that whatever ultimate theological debate may conclude, a perfectly coherent, albeit undoubtedly not very widely acceptable case can be made for their current practice.

Abstract: A S sociologist Andrew Greeley observed in his recent book Unsecular Man and as others have since reaffirmed, the 1970s have not witnessed the continuation of the secularization process projected by observers during the 1960s. On the contrary, the current decade has been one of widespread religious ferment. Estimates given in the media of evangelical participation alone range as high as thirty to forty million Americans. An NBC newscast recently reported, on the basis of a national opinion poll, that one out of every three Americans was "born again" and returning to fundamentalist Christianity. Thht a number of public figures from Charles Colson to Eldridge Cleaver to Larry Flynt have been among the converts has served to dramatize the influence of the movement. Alongside this resurgence of conventional Judaic-Christian religious activity, there has been a proliferation of marginal or "new" religious groups such as the Unification church, the Children of God, Hare Krishna, the Divine Light Mission, Scientology, and numerous other less well known groups. While this myriad of marginal religious groups taken together includes only a fraction of the number of Americans who are born again Christians, such groups have commanded as much or more public attention and concern. Much of this negative publicity can be traced to the loosely organized but highly vocal members of a conservative countermovement which has been alternately christened the "anticult" or "deprogramming" movement. (Deprogramming refers, in its coercive extreme, to the abduction and restraint of marginal religious group members for the purpose of pressuring them to recant their new faiths.) The members of this countermovement, most of whom are disgruntled former members or relatives of members of these marginal religions, have charged that these groups gain converts through the use of coercive, manipulative mind-control techniques. The spectacular charges of Svengalian brainwashing methods used by these groups create the impression that these religious organizations constitute a rare social aberration. However, even a cursory examination of American history reveals that marginal religious groups have always existed in substantial numbers. For a variety of reasons these groups sometimes become more visible and are regarded as threats to the conventional order. When members of conventional society perceive them to be a clear and present danger to cherished values, there follows a tendency to attach to them beliefs and powers which, in whatever the terms of that culture, constitute evil. From the perceived danger is initiated a process of locating, identifying, and neutralizing that evil.