sign in sign up
<<
Home , Coming of Age in Samoa, Derek Freeman, Napoleon Chagnon, Sherwood Washburn

COMMENT

Anthropologists unite! isn’t in the crisis that parts of the media would have you believe, but it must do better, argue Adam Kuper and Jonathan Marks.

n December 2010, which seems to translate into antiscience.” cannot agree on what the ns I reported1,2 that the term ‘science’ had The new long-range plan also provoked discipline is about. Many, probably most, Park

been dropped in a new long-range plan rumblings of discontent (still ongoing) in the anthropologists have walked away from their ID Iof the American Anthropological Associa- blogosphere, and the association’s executive traditional mission, which is to build a truly tion (AAA). Where once the association had committee scrambled somewhat belatedly to comparative science of human variation. We ons by Dav by ons dedicated itself “to advance anthropology as reassure the public — and its own members need to work out where we are now heading. I the science that studies humankind in all its — that it had all been a misunderstanding. aspects”, it now promised rather “to advance They had not intended to cast doubt on the Roots and bRanches public understanding of humankind in all scientific character of the discipline. And in The reason that the AAA got into such a Illustrat its aspects”. fact the same committee had come up with a pickle is that — like geography, even perhaps The reporter suggested that this brought simultaneous text entitled ‘What is Anthro- like biology — anthropology is a nineteenth- to a head an epic struggle in the discipline pology?’, which describes anthropology century discipline that fragmented, spawn- between the true scientists and their foes. unambiguously as a science. ing a variety of specializations. Biological Frank Marlowe, president-elect of the Evo- Apparently, a committee had floundered in anthropology, and the vari- lutionary Anthropology (a branch trying to come up with an agenda for anthro- ous traditions of are bundled of the AAA that is curiously independent of pology that was baggy enough to accommo- together in many university departments its long-standing date its very various research programmes. Is and professional associations such as the Section), was quoted as saying: “we evolu- this news? Indeed it is, but not, as the bloggers AAA and, in Britain, the Royal Anthropo- tionary anthropologists are outnumbered by and The New York Times suggest, because an logical Institute. However, relationships are the new cultural or social anthropologists, anti-science conspiracy has hijacked Ameri- often distant. The biologists do genetics, or many but not all of whom are postmodern, can anthropology. The real shocker is that neuroscience, or , or chase up

166 | NATURE | VOL 470 | 10 FEbRUARy 2011 © 2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved COMMENT new developments in evolutionary theory. Geertz followed that road down to a relativist faculties of science or medicine. Cultural They show little interest in archaeology dead end. All generalizations about human anthropologists allied themselves with the — except perhaps the archaeology of very beings were suspect, except for the iron law humanities. Archaeologists sought shel- ancient humans — or in ethnography, that trumps biology3. ter where they could. In Europe the main except for snippets of information about The controversies of the 1980s, which branches of anthropology had gone their sex and violence. Some do seem to feel lingered on into the 1990s, often hinged on own ways after the Second World War. It now that if only they could spare the time they claims about race, sex and violence, and so seemed as though the Americans were belat- would be able to knock some evolutionist they caught the attention of a wider public. edly following the same route. However, in the sense into . But they In a popular book published in 1928, Mar- new millennium, the brief and localized trend are too busy. garet Mead had reported that Samoan girls reversed itself. This is because there is a stu- Meanwhile, the ethnographers agree that enjoyed sexual freedom, and so experienced dent demand for the whole package, the study their first task is to document the great diver- an untroubled passage through adoles- of human origins, history and diversity. sity of human ways of life. Generalizations cence4. More than half a century later (and Today, anthropologists may teach more or about human nature should not be based after Mead’s death), trashed less happily in interdisciplinary teams, but on a single report of Amazonian violence, her account, insisting that the girls were they seldom collaborate in research projects or Tibetan , or woman–woman remarkably chaste5. Rather mysteriously, the that breach their disciplinary specialities. among the Lovedu of South Africa. sex life of Samoan girls became a popular In the past few years But they do not agree on how to make sense test-case for the nature–nurture argument. they have drifted to of the customs of faraway peoples. Social (Recent commentaries are kinder to Mead “There a sadder-but-wiser anthropologists engage with models and than to Freeman, although it has become is a need default position, some theories current in the social sciences obvious that neither Freeman nor Mead can for a truly documenting the (ideally, although they seldom keep up as be relied on uncritically for the description comparative range of differences well as they should). Some cultural anthro- of Samoan , let alone for the science of in human biology, pologists aim rather to understand and explanation6.) human beings others studying the translate, and they look for inspiration to Young women might find happiness in a throughout world of social insti- literary theorists and philosophers (prefer- liberated sex life, but were young men given their history, tutions and belief sys- ably French, even if they have to be read in rather to violence? Napoleon Chagnon and all over tems. Only a handful often impenetrable translations). claimed that among the of the the world.” still try to understand For a long time the main branches of Amazon, the most violent men got the girls. the origins and pos- anthropology largely ignored one another, (And he suggested that, in something like a sible connections but in the 1980s two radical movements state of nature, all men are Yanomami under between biological, social and cultural provoked a confrontation. Sociobiologists the skin7.) His account of these people was forms, or to debate the relative significance claimed that genetics was about to revolu- challenged by other ethnographers, who of history and microevolution in specific, tionize the human sciences. These would reported significant local variation even well-documented instances. become at last a branch of biology, although among the 22,500-strong Yanomami, not This is a great pity, and not only because the great biologist Ernst Mayr did warn that least in rates of homicide and the abduction the silence of the anthropologists has left the “the profound differences in social behaviour of women8. In any case, the Yanomami are field to blockbusting books by amateurs that among human groups, some of them closely not typical even of the most isolated, small- are long on speculation and short on reliable related, show how much of this behaviour is scale, technologically limited . Many information. Anthropologists hardly bother cultural rather than genetic”. Sociobiologists document easy-going gender any longer to take issue with even the most also drew on , relationships between hunter-gatherers, outlandish generalizations about human an older movement “The real from Alaska to the Kalahari Desert, or offer nature. Not their business. that made much of shocker is that historical accounts of peace-loving Indian parallels between anthropologists chiefs with many wives, presiding over a betteR togetheR human and primate cannot agree monastic soldiery. To be sure, it is not easy to make general — or even insect — what the Race was altogether a more serious matter, statements about human nature, or even to behaviour, provoking discipline but on this the anthropologists were not fun- define it. One obstacle is the often-taken-for- Sherwood Washburn, is about.” damentally divided. The 1994 publication by granted opposition between the notoriously a leading biological psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and politi- — perhaps necessarily — unstable ideas of , to cal scientist Charles Murray of their book The ‘nature’ and ‘culture’. The human species has comment that human ethology “might be Bell Curve9 provoked a national debate about been co-evolving with technology for mil- defined as the science that pretends humans race and inequality. The AAA and the Ameri- lions of years. Advances in contraceptive cannot speak”. can Association of Physical Anthropologists techniques have transformed our sexual Inspired by the elegant essays of Clifford issued parallel statements summarizing the behaviour. The most fundamentally hard- Geertz, another new movement appeared scientific understanding on race. In brief, they wired human adaptations — walking and centre-stage in the 1980s (in fact another agreed that human variation is structured bio- talking — are actively learned by every per- very old movement, in modern dress). culturally, clinally and locally. Nothing corre- son, in each generation. So whatever human Cultural theorists, identifying themselves sponding to the zoological subspecies exists nature may be, it clearly takes a variety of with the humanities, insisted that foreign within extant Homo sapiens. Individuals and local forms, and is in constant flux. ways of thought are resistant to translation, groups of people do indeed differ biologically. The obvious conclusion is that inter- that variation and change characterize even However, social inequalities are overwhelm- disciplinary research is imperative. Yet too the most isolated populations, and that it is ingly the product of political and economic few biological anthropologists attend to therefore not easy to say what the Bushmen history, not of microevolution. social or cultural or historical factors. A do, or the Trobrianders, or for that matter the In the course of the feuding 1980s, several minority of cultural anthropologists and English (all of them? Always?), so com- flagship anthropology departments in the archaeologists do apply evolutionary theory, parisons are problematic. Some disciples of United States split up. The biologists joined or cognitive science, or adopt an ecological

10 FEbRUARy 2011 | VOL 470 | NATURE | 167 © 2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved COMMENT perspective on cultural variation, or play anthropologists to read each other’s papers, about with the theory of games, but they to attend each other’s conferences and to feel that they are isolated, even marginalized. debate concrete cases and specific hypoth- And they do not feature in the front line of eses. But there is no future in a return to the current debates about cognition, altruism feuding parties of the 1980s. ■ or, for that matter, economic behaviour or environmental degradation, even though Adam Kuper is a visiting professor at the these debates typically proceed on the basis Department of Anthropology, London School of very limited reliable information about of Economics, London WC2A 2AE, UK. human variation. A rare exception is the Jonathan Marks is in the Department field of medical anthropology, where cultural of Anthropology, University of North anthropologists engage regularly with biolo- Carolina-Charlotte, Charlotte, gists in studies of HIV and AIDS, or post- North Carolina 28223, USA. traumatic stress disorders, or investigations e-mail: [email protected] of folk medical beliefs and practices. Yet even allowing for their current head- 1. Wade, n. anthropology a science? statement deepens a rift. New York Times (9 December down posture, anthropologists do share a 2010). great common cause. They would agree that 2. Wade, n. anthropology group tries to soothe anyone who makes claims about human tempers after dropping the word ‘science’. New York Times (13 December 2010). nature must learn a lot of ethnography. North America and the European Union. 3. kuper, a. Culture: The Anthropologists’ Account This does not mean parachuting into the Ninety-six per cent of the subjects of stud- (Harvard univ. Press, 1999). jungle somewhere to do a few psychologi- ies reported in the leading American psy- 4. Mead, M. Coming of Age in (William Morrow, 1928). cal experiments with the help of bemused chology journals are drawn from Western 5. Freeman, D. and Samoa (Harvard 10 local interpreters, or garnishing generaliza- industrial societies . These represent a univ. Press, 1983). tions with a few worn and disputed snippets minuscule and distinctly non-random 6. shankman, P. The Trashing of Margaret Mead: Anatomy of an Anthropological Controversy (univ. about exotic customs and practices. Unfor- sample of humanity. Wisconsin Press, 2009). tunately, very nearly So there is a need for a truly comparative 7. Chagnon, n. a. Science 239, 985–992 (1988). natuRe.com all research funding in science of human beings throughout their 8. albert, b. Curr. Anthropol. 30, 637–640 (1989). For more on working 9. Herrnstein, r. J. & Murray, C. The Bell Curve: the human sciences is history, and all over the world. This requires Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life in anthropology see: directed to the study more interdisciplinary team research in (Free Press, 1994). go.nature.com/3n11uo of the inhabitants of anthropology. A good start would be for 10. arnett, J. J. Am. Psychol. 63, 602–614 (2008).

© 2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved