U.K. Science: Survival of the Fittest--or Fattest?: The British government claims its budget restrictions will increase the effectiveness of university research; critics say too much selectivity could kill the goose that lays the golden egg

Science ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 236 (4801) ◽  
pp. 512-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. DICKSON
2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-52
Author(s):  
Bonnie White

In 1917 the British government began making plans for post-war adjustments to the economy, which included the migration of surplus women to the dominions. The Society for the Overseas Settlement of British Women was established in 1920 to facilitate the migration of female workers to the dominions. Earlier studies have argued that overseas emigration efforts purposefully directed women into domestic service as surplus commodities, thus alleviating the female ‘surplus’ and easing economic hardships of the post-war period. This article argues that as Publicity Officer for the SOSBW, Meriel Talbot targeted women she believed would be ideal candidates for emigration, including former members of the Women's Land Army and affiliated groups. With the proper selection of female migrants, Talbot sought to expand work opportunities for women in the dominions beyond domestic service, while reducing the female surplus at home and servicing the connection between state and empire. Dominion authorities, whose demands for migrant labour vacillated between agricultural workers during the war years and domestic servants after 1920, disapproved of Talbot's efforts to migrate women for work in agriculture. Divergent policies led to the early failure of the SOSBW in 1923.


Author(s):  
Michael Laver ◽  
Ernest Sergenti

This chapter extends the survival-of-the-fittest evolutionary environment to consider the possibility that new political parties, when they first come into existence, do not pick decision rules at random but instead choose rules that have a track record of past success. This is done by adding replicator-mutator dynamics to the model, according to which the probability that each rule is selected by a new party is an evolving but noisy function of that rule's past performance. Estimating characteristic outputs when this type of positive feedback enters the dynamic model creates new methodological challenges. The simulation results show that it is very rare for one decision rule to drive out all others over the long run. While the diversity of decision rules used by party leaders is drastically reduced with such positive feedback in the party system, and while some particular decision rule is typically prominent over a certain period of time, party systems in which party leaders use different decision rules are sustained over substantial periods.


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