Posted on 12/09/2010 6:30:08 PM PST by Palter
Anthropologists have been thrown into turmoil about the nature and future of their profession after a decision by the American Anthropological Association at its recent annual meeting to strip the word “science” from a statement of its long-range plan.
The decision has reopened a long-simmering tension between researchers in science-based anthropological disciplines — including archaeologists, physical anthropologists and some cultural anthropologists — and members of the profession who study race, ethnicity and gender and see themselves as advocates for native peoples or human rights.
During the last 10 years the two factions have been through a phase of bitter tribal warfare after the more politically active group attacked work on the Yanomamo people of Venezuela and Brazil by Napoleon Chagnon, a science-oriented anthropologist, and James Neel, a medical geneticist who died in 2000. With the wounds of this conflict still fresh, many science-based anthropologists were dismayed to learn last month that the long-range plan of the association would no longer be to advance anthropology as a science but rather to focus on “public understanding.”
Until now, the association’s long-range plan was “to advance anthropology as the science that studies humankind in all its aspects.” The executive board revised this last month to say, “The purposes of the association shall be to advance public understanding of humankind in all its aspects.” This is followed by a list of anthropological subdisciplines that includes political research.
The word “science” has been excised from two other places in the revised statement.
The association’s president, Virginia Dominguez of the University of Illinois, said in an e-mail that the word had been dropped because the board sought to include anthropologists who do not locate their work within the sciences, as well as those who do.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“public understanding.” ping
Don’t forget the economists...every new development is “unexpected” by their experts according to most news reports.
..add physiologist and sociologists to the list.
Science is not a subject; it is a methodology.
Absolutely. Unquestionably the most profound and puissant of all branches of science.
“The decision has reopened a long-simmering tension between researchers in science-based anthropological disciplines — including archaeologists, physical anthropologists and some cultural anthropologists — and members of the profession who study race, ethnicity and gender and see themselves as advocates for native peoples or human rights.”
Neither branch is science-based. If they just stuck to observation they could call it science, but they have all sorts of ideas which can’t be tested, verified, or falsified.
IOW their work is intentionally biased. They're not scientists.
I think physical anthropology is scientific. Cultural anthropology may fade into sociology.
Just my opinion based on one course on anthropology in college and occasional reading.
Same goes for religion.
Problem is, most of society thinks they are both subjects.
The message I get from this is:
The experts can’t come to a consensus, so there are no real answers yet.
BUT, some of the experts are willing to give their opinion.
I think you can add string theory physics to that list since it proposes a model that cannot be tested because the necessary measurements would have to be on a scale less than Planck’s constant.
You could also add the global warming theorists to that list, whether it is meteorology, chemistry, physics, oceanology, etc.
Science is really in a sad condition and I don’t think many recognize how bad it really is. I resigned from the American Chemical Society years ago when they turned into a PC politically lobbying organization bent on getting government funding. They will support any pet cause, project, or theory that gets funding for members (and themselves).
“Science is really in a sad condition and I don’t think many recognize how bad it really is. “
I noticed it and it broke my heart.
It is as much a science as history is.
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The Neandertal Enigma"Allan Wilson had always been described to me in superlatives, such as 'one of the real geniuses in science,' or 'the most arrogant guy I know...' [H]e apologized for putting me off so long and bluntly explained that the reason he had done so was that he did not trust me... 'The anthropological perspective on evolution is no longer valid; it has been overthrown. And yet the science writers who insist on talking to me come drenched in an anthropological perspective, and there is really no point in talking to them... It is paralytic. It prevents you from asking certain questions, and it forces you to ask others. The whole discipline invites you not to investigate.'
by James Shreeve
...A few months before my visit, Wilson had announced at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science... that the Neandertals were replaced because they could not speak... suggesting that a particular gene for language might have been carried in the mitochondria themselves. Since invading males would have been more likely to mate with resident females than the other way around, the offspring of sexual contact between the two groups would be 'linguistically deaf-mute,' like their Neandertal mothers. Thus disadvantaged, these 'village idiots' would face the same fate as the mothers: extinction. Only the language-endowed African lineage would continue. The language gene idea, and especially the unfortunate term 'village idiots,' elicited hoots of derision from the anti-Eve camp, and gave no joy to Wilson's colleagues." [pp 119-121]
Just my opinion based on one course on anthropology in college and occasional reading.
When I was in college we had a sociology prof who was widely mocked, mimicked and caricatured as saying. "Sociology is a science. Of course sociology is a science. Please say, 'Sociology is a science.' If you don't say 'Sociology is a science,' I'll cry!"
Still, there remains a demand for a legitimate field of study of cultures, kinship groups, mores and taboos, independent and untainted by PC toxins.
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