Chagnon, the Yanomamo, and Darkness at El Dorado

The publication in 2000 of Darkness in El Dorado by Patrick Tierney created a firestorm of controversy in the International Anthropological community. In this book, Tierney discusses a variety of ethical and scientific issues surrounding anthropological studies during the 1960s and 19702 of the Yanomamo people of Brazil. The main protagonist (antihero?) of this tale of alleged ethical and scientific misconduct is University of Michigan cultural anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon, whose book Yanomamo: The Fierce People was one of the best selling ethnographies of all time. Tierney criticizes Chagnon's behavior as unethical, and questions some of Chagnon's major conclusions concerning Yanomamo society, especially the notion that violence among Yanomamo males was an evolutionary strategy rewarded by greater fitness. I've made available a sample of reviews of Tierney's book and journalistic pieces about the Anthropological reaction to Tierney's charges for you to read on Mediafire. I'm looking forward to your reactions to this very controversial issue.

Momentous Sprint

The final article in our series on data and its interpretation is a short piece entitled "Momentous Sprint at the 2156 Olympics?". I have included 3 files here: the actual article by Tatem et al. (2004), the data file, and a note on the methods used by the authors. The question that I would pose for your consideration is...do you agree with the authors' assertion that the evidence suggests that the gap between male and female Olympic sprinters is getting smaller and may disappear within the next 40 or 50 years? Can you critically analyze the statistical methods used by the authors and offer some alternative interpretation of the data?

The Significance of Insignificant Results

What happens when a scientific experiment results in failure to falsify the null hypothesis? Typically negative results get filed away in a cabinet, never to be published or shared with the rest of the research committee. But what is the cost to science of this system in terms of duplicated effort? The article "Null and Void" explores some of these issues, mostly in the biological sciences. What are some of the suggested solutions posed by the author, and do you think this issue has any relevance for anthropologists?

Data, Illustrations, and Interpretations

In this week's blog I'd like to offer for your consideration the first of a set of three very short pieces from the journal Nature. Each of these three articles deals with issues related to epistemology in the context of scientific discourse, and I believe that they may be of much interest to the enquiring anthropologist. Tell me if I'm correct.
The first article is a commentary piece from January 2004 entitled "Is a picture worth 1000 words?" and it deals with the proper place of illustration in scientific literature. Drawing upon the historical record of scientific illustration from Galileo to nanotechnology, the author argues for the importance of accurate and realistic illustrations, but also warns of the dangers that accompany the new technologies in scientific illustration and the ease with which digital illustrations can be modified and manipulated. What are the pitfalls of scientific illustration in our 21st century world of science, and do they also apply to anthropology? What are some of the unique ways (positive and negative) in which illustrations can impact anthropological research and writing? Rather than outright fraud, the author suggests that we need to be careful to insure that our images and illustrations are based in reality and don't imply interpretations that are not supported by our data.
Do any of these concerns seem relevant with respect to the kinds of fossil reconstructions that so often accompany paleoanthropological or archaeological finds? What are your reactions to this famous image based on the remains found at the African Plio-Pleistocene site known as Laetoli in Tanzania? Can you find other images or reconstructions that have been used by paleoanthropologists or archaeologists that tell a narrative or perhaps imply more than the data actually support?

Know of Any Interesting Anthro or Science Blogs?

One of the most popular blogs in Biological Anthropology belongs to John Hawks, a biological anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin who earned his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan under Milford Wolpoff. John writes interesting posts on all sorts of subjects of Anthropological interest, with an emphasis on human genetics and human evolution. Check out his blog and report back here on some interesting piece or pieces that you read there (include a link to the article or articles you comment on). Also, find some other blogs by anthropologists or other scientists or social scientists that interest you and send us the URLs with a brief description of each.

Science in the 21st Century: The Age of The Web

Hello Folks, I'd like to introduce you to this week's blog topic with a little video, so click on the PLAY button and let's get to blogging about Science in the Web Age.

Here is the link to a series of short science journalism pieces from Nature on the topic.

And here is the video introduction to this week's blog entry. Note that it is available on YouTube. Later we will see how to embed the video blog link right in this blog window for immediate streaming to your desktop (no download required).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6FpBF56yrg