Why are some individuals relatively more successful than others in achievement? And why are some countries (or regions), for that matter, relatively more successful than others in development? Contrary to the conventional wisdom held by many, Dr. Baofu argues that the nature-nurture debate is misleading and faulty, since his “transcendent approach” is to show how and why the two are closely intertwined in producing the behavioral differences as often seen in individual human endeavors on the micro scale, and for that matter, in country (or regional) endeavors on the macro one—without, however, committing “the compromise fallacy” as often seen in an in-between alternative. The debate also obscures something more tremendous in the long run, in relation to the emergence of what Dr. Baofu originally proposed as the “post-human” world that humans have never known, when human genes will no longer exist. Human genes have their days numbered.

Beyond Nature-Nurture: Essays in Honor of Elizabeth Bates is a very special tribute to the University of California at San Diego psycholinguist, developmental psychologist, and cognitive scientist Elizabeth Ann Bates, who died on December 14, 2003 from pancreatic cancer. Liz was a force of nature; she was also a nurturing force, as is evidenced by this collaborative collection of chapters written by many of her closest colleagues and former students. The book covers a brilliant career of wide-ranging interdisciplinary interests, such as the brain bases of language in children and adults; language and cognitive development in normal and neurologically impaired populations of children; real-time language processing in monolinguals and bilinguals; and crosslinguistic comparisons of language development, language use, and language loss. In this volume the contributors provide up-to-date reviews of these and other areas of research in an attempt to continue in the directions in which she has pointed us. The genius of Bates is founded on a deep dedication to science, supported by an enduring sense of humor. The volume is introduced by the editors' collection of "Bates's aphorisms," the wisdom of which guide much of the field today: "[T]he human capacity for language could be both innate and species-specific, and yet involve no mechanisms that evolved specifically and uniquely for language itself. Language could be viewed as a new machine constructed entirely out of old parts." (Bates & MacWhinney, 1989) The volume also contains a list of her many important publications, as well as some personal reflections of some of the contributors, noting ways in which she made a difference in their lives. Beyond Nature-Nurture: Essays in Honor of Elizabeth Bates appeals to international scholars in the fields of developmental psycholinguistics, cognitive science, crosslinguistic research, and both child and adult language disorders. It is a state-of-the-art overview of many areas of cognitive science, and can be used in a graduate-level classroom in courses designed as seminars in any of these topics.

To most biologists, sociobiology represents the concept of strict Darwinian individual selection married to an analytical application of ecological principles and brought to bear on social behavior in an unusually exciting and productive way. Joining the biologists are a small number of social scientists. But there are radically divergent views as to how the field should be delimited, and sociobiology is one of the most widely discussed fields in biology and anthropology today. The symposium on which this book is based was arranged by a biologist and an anthropologist. The participants, leaders in their fields, ably present contrasting and responsible views on current issues. This is the first collection of essays on sociobiology in which opposing views are aired. It is an exciting, timely book and an important historical document.

With unprecedented scope and vision, Dr. Dai systematically redefines giftedness and proposes a new framework for the field of gifted education. He identifies nine essential tensions, revolving around three core questions: What do we know about the respective roles of natural ability, environment and experiences, and personal effort in talent development? How do we identify the gifted and talented, and study the process of gifted and talent development? And finally, how do we define the aims of gifted education and promote excellence? Sure to be a milestone in the field, this book: Scrutinizes some of the deeply held assumptions about the nature of giftedness and explains why a contextual, developmental approach is a more viable alternative to the traditional psychometric approach. Takes stock of the past, defines the present, and looks into the future in terms of understanding high potential and educating youths. Tackles tensions between the gifted child and talent development movements and between excellence and equity, and responds to the “elitism” criticisms in a constructive and comprehensive way.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom held by many, not only the dominance of the U.S. in the post-Cold War era is much exaggerated, but also its days as a hyper-power are ending. Instead, the world is slowly but steadily evolving towards what Dr. Baofu originally calls the dawn of 'the post-post-Cold War era' in 'the world of titans' for a tremendous remaking of world order, to be governed by different types of empires crossing regional borders. This has important implications for understanding the logic of empire-building, be it in the past, present, or future, to the extent that the current theoretical debate on international relations among different paradigms is as much misleading as obsolete. The current debate also obscures something more tremendous in the long run, in relation to the emergence of what Dr. Baofu proposes as 'the union of the unions' in the farther future that humans have never known, both here on earth and later in deep space.

Is moral goodness really so desirable in the way that its proponents through the ages would like us to believe? For instance, in our time, there is even this latest version of the popular moral idea shared by many, when Dalai Lama suggested that "[w]e need these human values [of compassion and affection]....Even without religion, ...we have the capacity to promote these things." (WK 2009) The naivety of this popular moral idea can be contrasted with an opposing (critical) idea advocated not long ago by Sigmund Freud (1966), who once wrote that "men are not gentle creatures who want to be loved, and who at the most can defend themselves if they are attacked; they are, on the contrary, creatures among whose instinctual endowments is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness. As a result, their neighbor is for them...someone who tempts them to satisfy their aggressiveness on him, to exploit his capacity for work without compensation, to use him sexually without his consent, to seize his possessions, to humiliate him, to cause him pain, to torture and to kill him. Homo homini lupus." Contrary to the two opposing sides of this battle for the high moral ground, morality and immorality are neither possible nor desirable to the extent that their respective ideologues would like us to believe. But one should not misunderstand this challenge as a suggestion that ethics is a worthless field of study, or that other fields of study (related to ethics) like political philosophy, moral psychology, social studies, theology, or even international relations should be dismissed. Needless to stress, neither of these two extreme views is reasonable either. Instead, this book provides an alternative (better) way to understand the nature of ethics, especially in relation to morality and immorality-while learning from different approaches in the literature but without favoring any one of them (nor integrating them, since they are not necessarily compatible with each other). This book offers a new theory to transcend the existing approaches in the literature on ethics in a way not thought of before. This seminal project is to fundamentally alter the way that we think about ethics, from the combined perspectives of the mind, nature, society, and culture, with enormous implications for the human future and what I originally called its "post-human" fate.