Writing at Slate, Greg Laden gives a terrific overview of anthropology and also the war on Napoleon Chagnon:
Our way of being is certainly tied to our biological heritage, but the differences we see across cultures are the products of lived experience, with cultural norms shaped by our environment and how we are brought up. It also seems true that within academia, there are subfields into which we are enculturated, and which inform and shape our thinking.
The anthropological disciplines of biological anthropology and sociocultural anthropology each have distinct cultures, with different values, creation myths, heroes, and methods for educating students. Simply put, the former seeks biological explanations for culture, while the latter sees culture as constructed from experience. This spring, a debate has been playing out in response to Napoleon Chagnon’s new book, Noble Savages: My Life Among Two Dangerous Tribes—the Yanomamö and the Anthropologists...
Are Anthropologists a Dangerous Tribe? by Greg Laden, Slate
