Wilson's Research Research Articles

Property rights rule: comments on Bart Wilson's ‘The primacy of property; Or, the subordination of property rights’

AbstractBart Wilson argues that property is based on custom, not rights. Wilson (2022) further argues for the primacy of property over property rights. Wilson's research, including the recent book, The Property Species: Mine, Yours, and the Human Mind (2020), is a significant and arguably pathbreaking contribution to the vast literature on property and property rights. It also falls into the trap of economic arguments that unnecessarily devalue legal rights. I ague that we can all agree that ideas about property are always important to understanding property rights but that property rights still rule. This is in part because those who have property typically care most about property rights. I also argue that Wilson's concept of property is too focused on private ownership, rather than shared ownership or even government ownership of property. I suggest that considering the idea of sharing and other legitimate forms of property ownership alongside private ownership would generalize Wilson's constructivist theory of property and improve our ability to explain the diversity of property rights.

Alan Wilson – contributions to research on population and migration

ABSTRACTThis article reviews Alan Wilson's research on population and migration in the 1970s and the 2010s, which supplements his principal contribution - mathematical modelling of urban and regional systems. In the 1970s, drawing on input-output models of economies and working with Philip Rees, Wilson established the accounting basis for Andrei Rogers' multi-regional projection model, adding international migration. Innovative methods were developed to complete demographic accounts, where there were data gaps. In the 2010s, working with Adam Dennett, Wilson systematized methods for estimating migration flows between regions in Europe, employing his family of spatial interaction models. The key aim of both research strands was to ensure that no information was ignored to ensure consistency in population and migration models. The influence of Wilson's contributions to research on population and migration is traced through a survey of subsequent research.

The fast and the furious(ly manoeuvrable)

When face to face with a predator, would you rather have blistering speed to out-run or fancy footwork to out-manoeuvre your foe? If you opted for speed, you're not alone. We intuitively think quicker means better when it comes to eluding capture. Our fascination with fast is so pervasive that most research on predation and prey evasion focuses solely on maximal speeds when evaluating performance. But, are we missing an important part of the predator–prey story? Christofer Clemente and Robbie Wilson from the University of Queensland, Australia think so. In fact, they suggest that when it comes to gauging success in escaping from predators, our thinking needs a change in direction.Clemente and Wilson wanted to explore the role of traits other than speed in determining whether a victim escapes from a predator unscathed. They decided to focus on manoeuvrability; the capacity to turn rapidly within a confined space (i.e. with a small turning radius). Unfortunately, studying animal twists and turns has taken a backseat to speed in most research to date for one very practical reason: manoeuvrability is a hard thing to quantify and measure, especially in free-living animals. To overcome these logistic challenges, the team had to think outside the box. They designed a tablet-based game to simulate encounters between on-screen ‘prey’ dots and the ultimate food- (and technology-) motivated predators: university students. The team manipulated the behaviour of a single prey dot moving left to right across the screen by programming differences in prey speed, size and directional changes (manoeuvres) into discreet trials. To capture the prey and end the trial, the human predator had to tap on the moving dot within a certain radius of accuracy. After thousands of trials on dozens of volunteers, the researchers were able to evaluate what combinations of prey size, speed and manoeuvrability fared best when facing the touch of death.If you initially opted for speed over foot-work in the thought experiment above, don't fret: Clemente and Wilson confirmed the importance of being fast when it comes to escape success. However, their results also suggest that for slow prey, manoeuvrability can be the difference between escaping or ending up as dinner. The interaction between speed and manoeuvrability is even more complex when considering body size. Larger prey were hugely disadvantaged when travelling at intermediate speeds compared with smaller prey. Yet, body size did not seem to interact with manoeuvrability to determine escape success: more manoeuvrable means more likely to escape across all prey sizes. The researchers note that smaller animals such as mice and lizards, which have relatively slow absolute speeds, also tend to be highly manoeuvrable.Clemente and Wilson's research stresses the need to move beyond the current focus on speed when it comes to predicting the outcomes of predator–prey interactions. Understanding the role of traits like manoeuvrability, as well as acceleration and predictability, may provide a more complete picture of how some individuals thwart the hunt. Despite all this complexity surrounding escape success and performance, one clear pattern emerges: slow and steady definitely does not win the race!

Preventing Crime is Hard Work: Early Intervention, Developmental Criminology, and the Enduring Legacy of James Q. Wilson

ObjectiveThe late James Q. Wilson (1931-2012) was a prolific scholar and made many important contributions to the field of criminology. Less well known, however, is that Wilson was a great advocate of early prevention of delinquency and later offending. This essay examines this aspect of Wilson's overall contribution to criminology. Materials and methodsNarrative review of Wilson's research and writings on early crime prevention and developmental criminology. ResultsThree key events delineate Wilson's long-lasting support for early crime prevention: his 1983 "Raising Kids" article with its special focus on family-based prevention; his help to initiate and champion developmental and longitudinal research on offending in the 1980s and 1990s; and his influential writings and behind-the-scenes work on early prevention throughout the 1990s and 2000s. ConclusionsWilson played an important role in advocating for early crime prevention. Without question, this is part of his enduring legacy to the field of criminology.

Profiles in Science for Science Librarians: Edward O. Wilson

Edward O. Wilson was introduced to the natural world early in life while living in his native South, near the Gulf of Mexico. His fascination with studying ants, snakes, and other small creatures led to a highly successful career as a prominent scientist and naturalist. Wilson's research and studies in evolutionary biology, entomology, sociobiology, and biogeography produced new insights and exquisite detailed information on how the natural world works. A citation analysis of Wilson's books and research articles shows the enormous impact and reach of his ideas and research in the academic and environmental communities. Wilson's work also informed others who have curiosity for nature and ants in particular. Through programs by the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation and in other ways, Wilson has advanced awareness about the condition and plight of the natural world. Wilson's numerous achievements are recognized and acclaimed worldwide.

Book Review Article: Three Books on Sociobiology and the Arts

Three Books on Sociobiology and the Arts Biopoetics: Evolutionary Explorations in the Arts Edited by Brett Cooke and Frederick Turner Other contributors: Nancy Aiken, Wayne E. Alien, Alexander Argyros, Joseph Carroll, Kathryn Coe, Lee Cronk, Koen Depryck, Ettenn Dissanayake, Nancy Easterlin, Brian K. Hansen, Joseph D. Miller, Eric S. Rabkin, Daniel Rancour-Laferriere, Gary Westfahl ICUS (International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences), 1999, 466 pages Madame Bovary's Ovaries: A Darwinian Look at Literature David P. Barash and Nanelle R. Barash Delacourte Press, 2005, 262 pages The Literary Animal: Evolution and the Nature of Narrative Edited by Jonathan Gottschall and David Sloan Wilson Other contributors: Brian Boyd, Joseph Carroll, Frederick Crews, Denis Dutton, Dylan Evans, Maryanne Fisher, Robin Fox, Ian Jobling, Daniel J. Kruger, Ian McEwan, Daniel Nettle, Marcus Nordland, Catherine Salmon, Michelle Scalise Sugiyama. Northwestern University Press, 2005, 304 pages Sociobiology has endowed the scholarly world with a newly-identified (but not truly new) subdiscipline: adaptationist literary studies, also referred to as Darwinian, selectionist, or evolutionary. The Russian Formalist critic Viktor Shklovsky once noted that while samovars could be used instead of hammers to drive nails, this was not their intended purpose, nor was it the most productive way to employ them. Many of the still clumsy attempts to apply sociobiology to the arts create the same impression, but this is a field engrossed in the search for itself. There is a sense of excitement, of discovery, and discoverers are by definition brash. Some of the theories require a grain of salt and a sense of humor. Although the new discipline is small in the number of its adherents, it is amazingly disparate in its approaches, and thus I opt here for a sort of a hunt-and-peck approach - like the field itself. I freely confess that I do not do full justice to the various points of view presented in the book, and I apologize for that, but I do not see that it is possible to approach so many topics in any other way. Two of these books are, after all, collections of articles rather than monographs. So if you are not familiar with attempts to apply sociobiology to the arts, try to tolerate my telegraph style, and when you will have finished reading this review, you will have a basic acquaintance with both the promise and the weaknesses of the discipline. If at that point you want to learn more, try Joseph Carroll's Literary Darwinism: Evolution, Human Nature, and Literature (Routledge, 2004) or a fairly early collection The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture, edited by Jerome H. Barkow, Leda Cosmides, and John Tooby (Oxford University Press, 1992). Four of the five books contain extensive bibliographies. Biopoetics: Evolutionary Explorations in the Arts This collection was published by the International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences, and the contributors are indeed in search of a methodology which would permit the arts to be studied according to the same principles as mathematics and physics. I will attempt to list at least some of their salient ideas: Brett Cooke in his introduction points out the newness of the field and traces its origins back to Edward O. Wilson, and his 1975 book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Sociobiology views human society as operating according to principles observed in insect colonies, and that is why Wilson's research caused such a furor. In as much as Sociobiology is considered paradigmchanging, Cooke provides selections of and commentary on the biologist's writings, trying to reveal just how aesthetics might be of adaptive advantage, but Wilson is not an aesthetician and the approach comes off as rather hit-and-miss. In all fairness to Cooke, such a statement accurately sums up the state of the new field itself. …

Comment: Gender Blindness or Gender Suppression? A Comment on Fiona Wilson's Research Note

This comment takes one term which Fiona Wilson in her excellent and useful review of the research on gender in organization studies makes central to her thesis. Whilst this term may be meaningfully applied to more recent studies of organizational behaviour with a largely technical emphasis, it cannot be applied accurately to the classical and human relations theorists — Taylor, Weber, Mayo and Maslow. Here they are very much aware of gender, and because of the nature of their particular knowledge projects, they actively suppress it. Contemporary reflexivity has again made blindness no longer an option — organization theory has to either embrace gender or suppress it, and acknowledge the motivations behind and the consequences of that suppression.

Research in nursing H S Wilson Research in nursing 2ndedition Addison-Wcsley£30.550-201-05946-0

Research in Nursing, a comprehensive, introductory textbook, aims to provide nursing students with the knowledge and skills necessary both to appreciate and undertake research nursing.

Police: Professionals or craftsmen? An empirical assessment of professionalism and craftsmanship among eight municipal police agencies

Researchers on police attitudes frequently have assessed the degree to which police exhibit values reflecting professionalism. The present research, conducted on eight municipal police agencies in Illinois, examined the extent to which police exhibit values more characteristic of craftsmanship. Based on Wilson's (1968) discussion of styles of municipal policing, four craftsmanship constructs—apprenticeship, a holistic work-ethic, lack of deference to authority, and oral traditions—were measured using a 30-item craftsmanship inventory. Factor-analytic strategies were used to develop eight composite measures of craftsmanship. A comparison of responses to craftsmanship and professionalism composite scales suggested that the world view of police is more accurately characterized in terms of professionalism than craftsmanship. The conclusions discuss changes in policing in the two decades following Wilson's research that are consistent with notions of professionalism.

Isolationism of a Kind: Two Generations of World Court Historiography in the United States

With these apocryphal words from the proverbial doughboy, Charles Homer Haskins lightened his presidential address to the American Historical Association in December 1922. Haskins's theme was the historical and historiographical relevance of Europe to Americans, two subjects on which he could speak authoritatively. Dean of the Harvard Graduate School, an outstanding scholar of medievalism and the Mediterranean, Haskins was best known to his contemporaries as a member of Woodrow Wilson's research team at the Paris Peace Conference, the so-called Inquiry. In the course of his address Haskins surveyed the current state of American writing on European history and pronounced it moderately satisfying; but his underlying anxiety could not be disguised. Since he believed that all the “great European wars” had been “in every instance…American wars” and therefore “world wars,” Haskins feared the consequences of any American political and academic neglect of Europe. In Haskins's ambiguous formulation: “European history [was] of profound importance to Americans.”

Research About Nineteenth-Century Children and Books : Portrait Studies (review)

Reviewed by: Research About Nineteenth-Century Children and Books: Portrait Studies Anita C. Wilson Research About Nineteenth-Century Children and Books: Portrait Studies, ed. Selma K. Richardson. Urbana-Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Graduate School of Library Science, Monograph No. 17, 1980. 142 pp. Research About Nineteenth-Century Children and Books includes nine essays originally presented at a symposium held at the University of Illinois in April of 1979. In her introduction to the collection, Richardson explains that the symposium was designed as an interdisciplinary forum "to bring together portraitists, from novice to experienced, who are interested in depicting nineteenth-century children." The articles, which discuss nineteenth century British and American children's literature from literary, historical, and bibliographical perspectives, reflect this interdisciplinary focus and represent a wide range of topics, including analyses of juvenile characters in nineteenth century children's books, discussions of children's periodicals, and an assessment of current approaches to the history of childhood. Gillian Avery, author of Nineteenth Century Children (1965) and Childhood's Pattern (1975), was the keynote speaker at the University of Illinois symposium and contributed two essays to Research About Nineteenth-Century Children and Books. In "The Researcher's Craft: Designs and Implements," Avery gives an informal account of the challenges she encountered while researching her studies of Victorian children's literature. She describes the resources of the John Johnson Collection of Ephemeral Printing in the Bodleian Library, a vast collection of largely non-literary printed material which, however, includes many nineteenth century children's books. Avery explains that her approach to children's literature emphasizes the social-historical rather than the literary aspects of children's books. Her second essay, "Children's Books and Social History," demonstrates this approach and analyzes changing images of the juvenile hero in nineteenth century British children's literature. Avery examines the impact of rigid class distinctions and of evangelicalism upon Victorian children's literature, and observes that although the late-Victorian writers of children's books preserved some of the evangelical conventions prominent in the books which they themselves had read in childhood, they created juvenile heroes who appealed to sentiment rather than piety. Avery concludes that this interaction between childhood memories and contemporary concerns and fashions "is one of the most fascinating things about the study of children's books. . . ." In "Reflections on Histories of Childhood," Walter L. Arnstein does not discuss children's literature as such, but asserts that most contemporary historians of childhood assume either that history reveals a generally consistent pattern of progress and improvement, or that history reflects a decline and deterioration after a supposed "Golden Age." Arnstein places Philippe Aries, author of Centuries of Childhood (1960) in the latter category, and regards Lloyd DeMause, editor of The History of Childhood (1974) and founder of The History of Childhood Quarterly (now known as The Journal of Psychohistory) as an extreme advocate of the optimistic, or Whig, approach. Arnstein questions DeMause's argument that contemporary Western child-rearing practices are superior to those which preceded them, and suggests that most current historians of childhood are insufficiently aware of their own assumptions and biases. Because evidence of past child-rearing practices is often limited and not representative of an entire society, Arnstein concludes that many historians in this field have generalized on the basis of inadequate evidence: "a survey of this past generation's work prompts a mood of skepticism and a note of caution." Arnstein provides a useful annotated bibliography of selected works on the history of childhood. Research About Nineteenth-Century Children and Books includes four essays on American children's literature, two of which deal with children's periodicals. In "Lydia Maria Child and the Juvenile Miscellany," Carolyn L. Karcher analyzes Child's attempt to combine anti-slavery sentiments with more conventional social values in the popular children's magazine which she founded and edited from 1826 to 1834. "First Appearances: Literature in Nineteenth-Century Periodicals for Children," by Harriet R. Christy, provides an overview of books and stories originally published in children's periodicals between 1789 and 1900, and analyzes changes in the magazines' philosophies and attitudes toward children and juvenile literature during this period. The essay includes...

A First Lesson in Econometrics

A First Lesson in Econometrics