Essays

, the new study of the biological elements in social behavior, touches on human behavior, it causes a stir. Yet the "nature versus nurture" controversy goes back to Charles Darwin's On the Origin of the Species (1859) and his theory of natural selection. The man who wrote Sociobiology: The New Synthesis in 1975 is Harvard entomologist Edward 0.Wilson. To his surprise, he became the target of academic critics, notably Marxists who argued that sociobiology, in effect, preached "ge-...

always seem to be cast in the role of the tortoise. Despite the Founding Fathers' belief in popular education, it took more than a century to estab- lish a serious U.S. public school system. Along the way, educa- tors and politicians have quarreled over shifting notions of what school teachers are supposed to do: "Americanize" immigrants? Train future factory workers? Provide equal opportunity? To- day, the debate is over "quality," and disarray in the classroom. The troubles...

reduced oil imports. None of them "can supply much more energy than they do now," say the authors.
Because most domestic sources of oil and natural gas have already been tapped, the United States will be lucky to maintain production at today's level-the equivalent of 19 million barrels of oil daily. (Current daily con-sumption of oil and gas is up to 27.6 million barrels of oil equivalent.)
"The United States has enough coal," the report's authors say, "for at least the...