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Anthropologists Unite! Anthropology 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

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Anthropologists Unite! Anthropology 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 COMMENT Anthropologists unite! Anthropology 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, The New York Times which seems to translate into antiscience.” anthropologists 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, archaeology and the vari- lutionary Anthropology Society (a branch trying to come up with an agenda for anthro- ous traditions of ethnography 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 Biological Anthropology 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 primatology, 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 culture 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 cultural anthropology. 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), Derek Freeman 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 polyandry, or woman–woman remarkably chaste5. Rather mysteriously, the that breach their disciplinary specialities. marriage 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 adolescence, 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 Yanomami 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 societies. Many information. Anthropologists hardly bother cultural rather than genetic”. Sociobiologists ethnographies document easy-going gender any longer to take issue with even the most also drew on ethology, 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 anthropologist, 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.
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