Böcker av Anthony Walsh

This book examines intelligence as it applies to various facets of human life. It explores the evolutionary origin of intelligence and the genetics and neurobiology of intelligence. Every human being is intelligent, but some are more intelligent than others. We know this both by observing different people's behavior and position in life and by their different intelligence quotient (IQ) scores. Most of the business of life can be conducted on a basis of habit, with little need for exceptional intelligence, which is irrelevant for many day-to-day pursuits. However, people of higher intelligence do much better in life than those of lower intelligence in so many ways. They attain higher social class, better physical and mental health, are less likely to be criminals, and many other things. IQ tests measure different cognitive abilities, but there is a factor common to them all that psychometricians call Spearman's g, or simply g. What this means is that in tasks that tax the brain, however different they may be from one another, if a person is good at one mental task, he or she is likely to be good at others, although not necessarily to the same degree.

Many of the fundamental questions philosophers and social scientists ask, necessarily entail examining the role of the social institutions. Social institutions are synchronized systems of self-enforcing regulative rules, behaviors, and practices designed for the perpetuation of important societal functions and which give durable structure to social interactions. Everything in human life entails aspects of one or more of these institutions. There are people in academia that want to sweep "dead white males" under the historical carpet, but two dead white men we cannot ignore when examining the social institutions are Plato and Aristotle. These men have been at the heart of Western culture for more than two millennia and still continue to shape it. There are few social or political issues today that were not thought about by these two great men. They had a lot to say about the social institutions, but they had contrasting visions on most things pertaining to them that may be broadly viewed as liberal and conservative, or what economist/philosopher Thomas Sowell calls unconstrained and constrained visionaries, respectively.The book is a scholarly work on these two foundational philosophers, but will also serve as a supplementary text for a sociology class (introduction to sociology, or one specifically devoted to the social institutions).

This book combines the latest in sociology, psychology, and biology to present evidence-based research on what works in community and institutional corrections. It spans from the theoretical underpinning of correctional counseling to concrete examples and tools necessary for professionals in the field.

Activists have long claimed that "the personal is political", but this book posits the converse: that the political is personal.The United States today is bitterly divided. It is less an aspirational melting pot of immigrants and more a salad bowl made up of distinct, often clashing flavors. The successive elections of two divisive presidents-one committed to the perennial leftist dream of "fundamental change" and the other to a conservative vision of "Making America Great Again"-have exacerbated what is arguably the greatest rift in politics since the election of Abraham Lincoln. Taking inspiration from Coleridge's belief that all humans are temperamentally destined to follow the path of Plato the Idealist or Aristotle the Realist, this book examines the political divide in terms of these temperamental differences.Liberals' and conservatives' views of human nature have a large bearing on the political policies they espouse, but their temperaments and personalities have the most significant impact. This book analyses the personality traits of liberals and conservatives in terms of the "Big Five" model-openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Conservatives are found in almost all studies to be more conscientious, agreeable, and extroverted, while liberals are found to be more open to new experience and neurotic. The political divisions I explore in this book are all essentially fueled by personality differences.There is a deepening divide between liberals and conservatives in the battle for America's soul: one side seeks to steer the nation sharply to the left into socialist selfdom, whereas the other side desires a wealthy and free America under the watchful eye of God's providence. A preponderance of academic texts belongs to the liberal tradition. Conservatives have long lacked a comparable intellectual tradition of their own, although an incipient one is now beginning to form. This book, while maintaining a measure of scholarly distance, is unashamedly written from a conservative point of view.

Activists have long claimed that "the personal is political", but this book posits the converse: that the political is personal.The United States today is bitterly divided. It is less an aspirational melting pot of immigrants and more a salad bowl made up of distinct, often clashing flavors. The successive elections of two divisive presidents-one committed to the perennial leftist dream of "fundamental change" and the other to a conservative vision of "Making America Great Again"-have exacerbated what is arguably the greatest rift in politics since the election of Abraham Lincoln. Taking inspiration from Coleridge's belief that all humans are temperamentally destined to follow the path of Plato the Idealist or Aristotle the Realist, this book examines the political divide in terms of these temperamental differences.Liberals' and conservatives' views of human nature have a large bearing on the political policies they espouse, but their temperaments and personalities have the most significant impact. This book analyses the personality traits of liberals and conservatives in terms of the "Big Five" model-openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Conservatives are found in almost all studies to be more conscientious, agreeable, and extroverted, while liberals are found to be more open to new experience and neurotic. The political divisions I explore in this book are all essentially fueled by personality differences.There is a deepening divide between liberals and conservatives in the battle for America's soul: one side seeks to steer the nation sharply to the left into socialist selfdom, whereas the other side desires a wealthy and free America under the watchful eye of God's providence. A preponderance of academic texts belongs to the liberal tradition. Conservatives have long lacked a comparable intellectual tradition of their own, although an incipient one is now beginning to form. This book, while maintaining a measure of scholarly distance, is unashamedly written from a conservative point of view.

Discusses that the nature of and need for love has biological origins. Walsh draws upon Darwin's sexual selection theory to define the perceptions of love by infants through the process of experience-dependent brain wiring.

Criminologists can benefit from questioning the underlying assumptions upon which they rest their work. This title examines philosophical concepts such as these in the context of important criminological theories or issues that are foundational but not generally considered in the literature on this topic.

Biosociology is an emerging paradigm seeking to understand human behavior by integrating relevant insights from the natural sciences into traditional sociological thinking. Biosociology posits no ultimate causes of human behavior, rather it seeks to understand how biological factors interact with other factors to produce observed behavior.

Explores criminal behaviour from various aspects of Tinbergen's Four Questions. This book examines the neurobiology of crime from a biosocial perspective. It suggests that it is necessary to understand some genetics and neuroscience in order to appreciate and apply relevant concepts to criminological issues.

In response to exciting developments in genetics, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology, a number of criminologists have embraced the position that criminal behaviour is the product of biological, psychological, and sociological factors operating together in complex ways. This title gives an overview of the state of research in the field.

Offers a perspective on crime and criminality by integrating the theories, concepts, and research from sociology, psychology, and biology. This title presents criminological theory and concepts in their traditional form and then show how integrating theory and concepts from the more basic sciences can complement, expand, and add coherence to them.

This book examines the incendiary issue of racial variation in crime rates in the United States and in many other countries using a variety of data sources. It examines the latest genetic data asserting the reality of the concept of race, and various lines of evidence from population genetics, evolutionary biology, and anthropology pertinent to the evolution of racial differences in behaviour. Because males of African descent commit a disproportionate number of crimes in all countries where crime rates are classified by racial categories are available, the emphasis is on explaining black crime relative to white and Asian crime. In addition to run-of-the-mill street crimes, racial differences in crimes such as mass, spree, and serial killing, hate crime, white-collar crime, and organised crime are examined. The horrendous experience of slavery and Jim Crow laws that blacks have had to uniquely endure in this country is the starting point for explaining African American crime in the United States. Such experiences bred a violent subculture in the African American community that is opposed to much of what mainstream America values. Although the behaviours and attitudes evident in inner city culture were functional responses to the conditions forced upon blacks by whites in former times, they are now dysfunctional and destructive. The role of poverty, the sex ratio, out-of-wedlock births, the devaluation of education, the ecology of the inner city, and child abuse and neglect are examined in detail from a biosocial perspective. A biosocial perspective is one that fully acknowledges and explores how intrinsic features of individuals interact with environmental conditions to produce behaviour.