[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/DalyWilson.jpg” caption=”Martin Daly and Margo Wilson of the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour will present a lecture entitled Carpe Diem: Inequality, Future Discounting, and Homicide on Wednesday, March 7. File photo.”]Income inequality is an excellent predictor of homicide rates, presumably because inequity inspires escalation of social competition. Extreme present-orientedness may be another predictor, since disdain for the future encourages recklessness.

These problems will be misunderstood if we consider violence and reckless disregard for the future to be mere pathologies. The degree to which one discounts the future and the intensity of competitive striving are normal, adaptive responses to social and material circumstances.

Martin Daly, PhD, FRSC, and Margo Wilson, PhD, FRSC of the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour will present a lecture entitled Carpe Diem: Inequality, Future Discounting, and Homicide on Wednesday, March 7 from 7:30 to 10 p.m. in the Health Sciences Centre, Room 1A1 (Ewart Angus Centre). The public is welcome to attend this free lecture. A reception will follow.

The McKay-Thode Lecture is named after two of McMaster's most distinguished scholars, Dr. Alexander McKay and Dr. Henry Thode,
both former presidents of the Royal Society of Canada.

Initiated by Dr. E.J.M. (Moran) Campbell, founding chair of the Department of Medicine, the purpose of the lecture is to stimulate debate by providing a forum for distinguished faculty at our University to present their work to the University and community at large.