~ a group blog on a variety of topics related to anthropology, sociology, and ordinary people ~
by Maximilian Holland
There is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination (Dennett 1995)
An inherent feature of the practice of observation in empirical science is its dependence upon how perception is ordered into description via language and communicated to others. This is true for social, physical, behavioral and other sciences; all are inextricably dependent upon language and pre-existing concepts. …
Jared Diamond has created a lot of heat in the anthropological blogosphere in the last few months. So much heat in fact, that Rex at Savage Minds is now in a position to write a “review of the reviews” in an April 2013 post here. Quite and achievement for a 512 page book published on December 31, 2012! When do reviewers have time to read such a book, and also come up with a thoughtful review?…
Mark Dawson’s April 2012 post “Why I Chose not to Get a PhD” post has been one of the more popular postings at Ethnography.com. There is also a good comment stream at the end of the post with a number of “attaboys,” and “that’ll tell’em Mark!” Such posts seem to appeal to the existential angst that afflicts anthropology in a world of budget cuts.
The most recent comments to the post are by Bill who has worked for the National Park Service and US Forest Service. …
Another new country, and region of the world. This time it is the country of Antigua, in the Caribbean where I am on vacation for 10 days. Going new places assaults the senses, as you the old categories brought from elsewhere prove inadequate to frame what you hear and see. That is why it is often interesting and important to write down thoughts when you first arrive, before the comfort of automaticity sits in, and even though, by definition, things are still “impressionistic.” …
I’m pretty happy about my post about Max Weber, and Luigi Cavalli-Sforza. Getting geneticists to at least acknowledge the existence of the patron saint of Sociology is big thing!
From an academic standpoint, Weber is one of my favorite topics, even though no one else seems to agree with me. I’ve been writing about the Old Dead German for years, usually to piss and moan about people from UC Berkeley. …
James Mullooly invented the word Scrogg, meaning something along the line of “anthropologist who catch geneticists playing fast and loose with the data.” In my experience, Scrogging is fairly easy to do on open-source turf of the Biological Sciences journals where there are often places for comments. These comments are typically reviewed by editors, and while not strictly “peer-reviewed,” would in my mind contribute to the academic record of aspiring academics. …
Ok, below is a complicate and attenuated definition of ethnicity by the classical sociologist Max Weber. Variations of this definition are found in many anthropology and sociological textbooks, though he is by far not the only source of wisdom. But be aware that as with most classical literature, it is often difficult to read. But for the purposes of this discussion with Population geneticists, I want to highlight Weber’s emphasis in beliefs about heredity and blood relationships in determining endogamy and exogamy. …
It has been a lively week on this blog. “DAD” and Razib Khan have challenged our (Michael Scroggins and myself) basic competency to discuss genetics and race/intelligence/etc. We have responded with similar incredulity to their ability to critique anthropology.
In other words, we in the social sciences think they are naïve, and they think we are dunderheads.
This overall does not seem to be a very productive set of assumptions to go forward with; Razib and DAD actually appear to be relatively well-read people, though clearly we do not read the same things. …
Ok, I think I will jump into Michael’s stream. I have a problem with the reductionism of geneticists, evolutionary psychologists, socio-biology, etc., too. And I’m also annoyed when such types go beyond their data, and start making generalizations that would be better addressed with the nuanced data ethnographer-types generate. Notably such data often cannot be “seen” from the spread sheets and certainly not from the bench of a genetics lab. I have written the editors of PLoS Biology (2005) and BMC Genetics (2013) respectively about such problems with respect to the Mla Bri of Thailand, a group which a long-time colleague and friend knows well. …
Anthropology is going through yet another bout of self-flagellation as Marshall Sahlins, Napoleon Chagnon, and others refight battles going back to the 1970s, gleefully aided and abetted by the New York Times.
This follows quickly on the heels of an attempt to kick Jared Diamond off of the anthropological island he never was on, and stretching back another, oh perhaps 3 or 4 weeks, savage minds.org took a run at banishing James Scott for his book about the highlands of Southeast Asia.…
Many anthropologists are concerned with the tendency of biologists to reduce social life in general, and culture in particular to the genes people carry. As a sociologist, I share that concern. I think that such reductionist approaches give a false sense of precision to the concept of culture which while very real, is often messy at the edges in very human ways.
I came up against this tendency to “reduce” everything to genetics recently in an article about the Mla Bri of Thailand, a small group (200-300 people) speaking a Khmuic language in northern Thailand. …
Adam Fish at SavageMinds.org has written about the problem conferences and conference fees. He asks whether they are really worth it for graduate students in particular—many grad students are told by their major professors that conferences are necessary for networking. I share Adam’s doubts, though. Hiring for tenure track academic jobs is done by hiring committees with the approval of deans and provosts who are not at the conference. Few if any decisions are made at the conference “job fairs.” …