Proponents of xenotransplantation hope that it will provide organs to fill the gap between the demand for and supply of organs for transplant. The scientific obstacles to transplanting animal organs into humans are daunting, as are the moral, political, and policy issues. Among them are concerns about animal rights and welfare, patient acceptance and informed consent, and broader public health issues, such as the cost-efficient deployment of scarce resources and the risk of disease in third parties. The latter is, in my view, the most immediately urgent issue. Pigs, the current animal of choice, carry many bacterial and viral pathogens, and it is currently impossible to assess the risk of disease to human populations. Because of this risk, a moratorium on xenotransplantation is necessary to protect public health; it is also questionable whether the technology, if successful, would be the most cost-effective way to promote health.

In the past quarter century, the concept of culture has undergone change as evolutionary scientists have come to include social behavior in their purview. Evolutionary psychology is the newest field to concern itself with culture by claiming that most specific human behaviors are generated by minds specifically designed for these behaviors—and not from a general-purpose mind—as a result of adaptations made during the Pleistocene. Thus, mental behaviors are explained as having formed independently of cultural learning. In defending the concept, however, the leading proponents practically slough off culture as significant in human affairs. I argue that they have neglected the powerful explanatory statement of Darwin regarding at least one general-purpose adaptation of social animals, namely, the instinct for sociability, a position supported by recent neurological studies. Expanding the Darwinian concept, modern research shows that (1) the human brain was selected for sociability, which explains the origin and strength of culture, as well as its variability; (2) the development of complex culture in a pre-human primate initiated the two-and-one-half million-year evolution to modern humans; and (3) there are political contributions to cultural evolution that rest on the nature of groups (competitive and cooperative).

Since my background includes involvement in the negotiations for the BWC and for the future Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), I have some general comments concerning possible implications of the program.

I would like to thank all of the scholars who wrote commentaries on my essay “The Human Genome Diversity Project: Ethical Problems and Solutions.” I welcome the criticism and have learned a great deal from such thoughtful analysis and commentary. Since I am replying to comments about my paper, I am in the unique position of having the last word (at least temporarily!). Since I now have the opportunity to learn from criticism, I reserve the right to modify my position or change my views.

Biopolitics can be taught as a curriculum, a “free standing course,” or as a component of mainstream political science courses. This essay contends that the free standing course is the most difficult of the three to do well. The problem lies in how to organize such a course. To introduce students to (a) biology, (b) politics, and (c) the union of the two, is asking a great deal of one course.

Arnhart's timely and provocative article attempts to resolve the value crisis of the modern biological and sociobiological sciences by reconciling these sciences with Aristotle's biological teleology. The idea that modern biology, like modern science in general, will engender a value crisis is hardly new. By engaging in ostensibly objective, quantitative, valuefree inquiry into the character of human and nonhuman organic life, scientific biology strips these forms of life of their traditional values. Biological science itself has failed to generate a new set of qualitative values to replace the discredited notions of myth, religion, and philosophy. This value nihilism has become particularly ominous in the contemporary period as military, ecological, and biomedical developments undermine our traditional assumptions about the character of organic life-and indeed may threaten the existence of that organic life. Perhaps it is an inevitable twist in the history of ideas that Aristotle's biological teleology, the bete noire of modern biological science, should be offered as a possible source for a new biological value system. Arnhart contends that Aristotle's biological teleology-i.e., the notion that species have their own ends and purposes-is both compatible with the most up-to-date biological research and can serve as a source for qualitative biological values. By adopting a teleological perspective, the ends and purposes of species not only describe essential elements of these species, but also prescribe an inherent, biological foundation for value judgments about them.

Torture is a crude and ancient method of extracting information and confessions from prisoners. Its use is still widespread throughout the world, but its techniques have become increasingly sophisticated. Today, information and confessions are commonly extracted from political prisoners with few signs of physical trauma. For instance, Israel's General Security Service has come to employ vigorous shaking as one such means of interrogation within the Occupied Territories of the Gaza and West Bank. This procedure may sound innocuous, but there are good reasons to believe that vigorous shaking can induce whiplash-related injuries. Such evidence is found in the child abuse and motor vehicle accident literature. Although global intellect may appear unaffected, more subtle emotional and cognitive dysfunction can create lasting impairment. This article concludes that vigorous shaking of political prisoners is a dangerous and potentially lethal mode of interrogation that should be discontinued by Israel's General Security Forces and avoided by all governments.