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Originally Posted by Dole
You see, on one hand you try to present yourself as some kind of learned far-right intellectual, but when anyone picks apart what you say (like Max did on the previous page) you don't even attempt (or perhaps you don't have) any kind of defence. It makes your already ludicrous arguments look just totally and utterly laughable.
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I've already posted a link with a full refutation of leftie journalist Patrick Tierney's allegations against Napoleon Chagnon. But seeing as nobody here seems to have read it, I'll post the whole piece:
We have been asked by the university to gather facts on the allegations against Napoleon Chagnon in the book Darkness in El Dorado by Patrick Tierney (forthcoming on November 16, 2000 from W.W. Norton & Co.). We have now obtained galley proofs of the book. We are also responding to the allegations made in a letter from two reviewers: Terence Turner of Cornell University and Leslie Sponsel of the University of Hawaii-Manoa. Our role is merely to collect data.
In the short time we have had to investigate these allegations, we have already found materials that directly contradict the allegations made against Dr. Neel, Dr. Chagnon, and Dr. Timothy Asch (both Neel and Asch are deceased and unable to defend themselves). It is now clear that the book contains numerous errors and inaccurately presents the work of Chagnon and Neel.
We believe that Mr. Tierney has not consulted important original source materials that were available for study. Analyses of those source materials by specialists and experts refute the allegations.
Allegations, particularly those involving academic work of highly distinguished scholars in their field, require a fair and open-minded peer review--not a sensationalized public discussion in the headlines and over the Internet.
Claim: Dr. Napoleon Chagnon staged the violence in the film called "The Ax Fight," which depicts Yanomami fighting.
The director of the film, The Ax Fight, was Timothy Asch. No documentary film analyst we have consulted believes that any part of The Ax Fight film was staged.
Dr. Peter Biella, of the Department of Anthropology at San Francisco State University, has studied this film extensively for several years and laments "that Asch is not alive to defend himself." Biella says: "the film's structure, as I argue in my introduction to the Yanomami Interactive CD (a study of The Ax Fight film), bends over backwards to qualify and reject stereotypic impressions of irrepressible Yanomami violence. The film is about ways that violence is muted, restrained, and non-fatal. Essentially it argues that without police, Yanomami manage to make their system of dispute settlement work pretty well, with nobody in this case getting very hurt." Biella has published transcripts of tape recordings of Chagnon in 1971 in support of his statement that "the 1971 taped evidence confirms that at first Chagnon knew virtually nothing about the origins of the fight." Dr. Biella and a co-author (Dr. Gary Seaman, Director of the Center of Visual Anthropology at the University of Southern California) plan to submit a lengthier analysis of The Ax Fight to the American Anthropological Association Newsletter with all the reasons why they believe The Ax Fight was not staged. Biella gives several cogent reasons why "the criticism that The Ax Fight was staged for the camera strikes me as obviously and manifestly untrue".
Dr. Gregory A. Finnegan of Harvard University has extensive background in visual anthropology. Dr. Finnegan was originally a student of Dr. Timothy Asch (when Asch was teaching at Brandeis University). Finnegan also does not believe The Ax Fight film was staged, pointing out that the fight was already in progress when the crewman doing the sound recording was in his first full day among the Yanomami. He adds that the film's dialogue indicates that Chagnon himself was so taken by surprise by the fight that he was initially confused about the reasons for the fighting; at first, he says on camera that he had been told it was over "incest." Only later did Chagnon and Asch discover that the fight grew out of "political tensions in a fissioning lineage."
Dr. Alexander Moore, Chair of the University of Southern California's Department of Anthropology, notes that the television show NOVA did stage a film of a Yanomami feast, and for that purpose an entire communal long house was built. However, neither Asch nor Chagnon were involved in that NOVA production. It may be that Tierney has confused the NOVA production with the earlier films of Asch and Chagnon, none of which were staged. [For information on obtaining a copy of the Interactive CD on the Yanomami Ax Fight film, contact
biella@sfsu.edu].
Claim: Chagnon himself is directly or indirectly responsible for endemic warfare among the Yanomami.
This claim is among the easiest to refute, especially since there is an extensive history on the topic. Warfare among Indian groups in South America goes back a minimum of 3,500 years. Abundant archaeological data show raiding, including the saving of trophy heads, throughout the pre-Hispanic periods called Chavin, Moche, Chimu, Wari, and Inka. Warfare was also reported by the Spanish conquerors of the sixteenth century A.D.
In the specific case of the Yanomami, our first report about these people is from the mid-1800s, by Moritz Schomburgk (1847-1848). Then sometime between 1875 and 1910, we have reports that women had been acquired by Yanomami raiding (Peters 1998:167-168). In 1911 Theodor Koch-Grunberg (1923) described the Yanomami as "very warlike people who succeeded in dominating several weaker tribes." The year 1931 is given as the year a war occurred between two Yanomami subgroups, the Xilixana and the Macu; 1935 as the year of the war between the Xilixana and the Yekwana; and 1946 as the year of a major epidemic (Peters 1998:167-168). Particularly illuminating is the story of Helena Valero, a woman of Spanish descent born in 1925 and captured in a Yanomami raid in 1937. Her biography is filled with data showing how fierce and brutal some Yanomami could be when abducting women from other villages as wives (Biocca 1971). These and many other accounts, too numerous to mention here, make the claim that Yanomami violence began with Chagnon's arrival obviously false.
[References: Moritz Schomburgk (1847-48). Reisen in Britisch Guinea in den Jahren 1840-44. 3 vols. Leipzig; Theodor Koch-Grunberg (1923) Von Roroima zum Orinoco, Ergebnisse einer Reise in Nordbrasilien und Venezuela in den Jahren 1911-1913. Vol. 3. Stuttgart, Germany; John F. Peters (1998) Life among the Yanomami. Broadview Press; Ettore Biocca (1971) The Yanomama: The Narrative of a White Girl Kidnapped by Amazonian Indians. Dutton paperback, New York.]
Claim: Chagnon's characterization of the Yanomami as "fierce people" encouraged 40,000 invading gold miners to use violence against them between 1980-1987.
We have already established that Chagnon was not the first author to describe the Yanomami as violent. In fact, critics who have accused him of this characterization forget that the Yanomami refer to themselves as waitiri, "fierce and valiant." What Chagnon did was translate the term into English.
Given that the behavior of miners toward indigenous people during "gold rushes" in the 1850s and 1860s in places like California and Australia was similar to that seen in the 1980s in the Amazon, the idea that Chagnon is responsible for such behavior is not convincing. Published accounts of Yanomami violence had preceded Chagnon's arrival by a considerable length of time. Thus it seems much more plausible that the miners were familiar with sensationalized newspaper articles on Yanomami warfare than that they had spent time reading the anthropological literature.
Below is just a sample of the extensive literature on the effects of gold mining in the Yanomami area.
[References: Bruce Albert "Gold Miners and Yanomami Indians in the Brazilian Amazon: The Hashimu Massacre." Published in Portuguese October 10, 1993 in Folha de Sao Paulo, Brasilia; Jed Greer (1993), The Price of Gold: Environmental Costs of the New Gold Rush," in The Ecologist 23 (3):91-96; David Cleary (1990) Anatomy of the Gold Rush. University of Iowa Press, Iowa City; Dennis Berwick (1992) Savages: The Life and Killing of the Yanomami. Hodder and Stoughton, London]
Claim: Turner and Sponsel learned of this "impending scandal" from reading the galley proofs of Tierney's book.
While the now-famous e-mail letter to the AAA by Turner and Sponsel leaves the impression that they had just learned of the accusations against Neel and Chagnon, there is published evidence that they knew about them long before (see Part 3). The first piece of evidence is that both Turner and Sponsel are thanked in the "Acknowledgments" section of Tierney's book, which indicates that they read it long before the galley stage. A second piece of evidence is that Tierney's book cites a 1995 interview with Terence Turner.
Evidence indicating that Leslie Sponsel knew of Tierney's book and its contents can be found in the bibliography of a 1998 article by Sponsel. In the journal Aggressive Behavior, Vol. 24, Sponsel has a paper entitled "Yanomami: An Arena of Conflict and Aggression in the Amazon." In this paper, Sponsel discusses 10 major areas of disagreement with Chagnon and makes allegations not unlike those in the Turner-Sponsel letter to the AAA. Sponsel's bibliography also includes a reference on page 122 to a book by Tierney, as follows:
Tierney P (forthcoming): Last Tribes of El Dorado: The Gold Wars in the Amazon Rainforest
It seems likely that this is the same manuscript cited in a second published source, Life Among the Yanomami, a book by John F. Peters (Broadview Press, 1998). Peters, however, cites Tierney's manuscript as follows:
Tierney, Pat. 1997. The Last Tribes of Dorado. New York: Viking.
Borders Bookstore advises us that their records showed that this book, originally scheduled for publication by Viking Press, never appeared in print for reasons unspecified. At the very least, there is evidence to suggest that Peters and Sponsel had read a version of Tierney's book prior to 1998.
It would appear that this same book is now to be offered for sale by W.W. Norton, under the title Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon. We find it significant that the subtitle changed from an emphasis on gold mining to an emphasis on alleged scientific and journalistic misdeeds between 1997 and 2000, exactly the period Turner and Sponsel seem to have been in contact with Tierney.
An interesting paper trail, leading back at least to 1993, reveals a history of published attacks on Chagnon, some of which sound remarkably similar to those attributed to Tierney. In that year several anthropologists, including Terence Turner and Eric Wolf, received an anonymous packet of materials in the mail that attacked and impugned Chagnon's character.
Two distinguished anthropologists sprang to Chagnon's defense in the March issue of the AAA newsletter. Eric Wolf (Distinguished Professor, CUNY-Lehman) (1994:2) says:
"Anthropologists need to arm themselves professionally and ethically against such dubious practices of anonymous character assassination, directed in this case against an anthropologist who has built up an exemplary body of data through long-term and often difficult fieldwork. Even those among Chagnon's colleagues who might disagree with his Neo-Darwinian premises (and these include the present writer) acknowledge his extraordinary devotion to anthropology as a science, which has provided us also with the information that allows us to debate his interpretations and suggest possible alternatives. This was recognized most recently in a meeting devoted to Chagnon's work at the New York Academy of Sciences on September 27, 1993. O The search for relevant questions and good answers should not be inhibited by demonization."
Another distinguished professor, Robin Fox (Rutgers University) (1994:2), says:
"American anthropologists, both individually and through their organization, should rally to the support of Chagnon and the absolute value of his courageous and brilliant field studies of Yanomami culture as well as his practical efforts to save it."
According to the May 1994 issue of the Newsletter of the American Anthropological Association, "circumstantial evidence" suggests that this anonymous packet came from supporters of the Salesian Missions, a group of missionaries who have long maintained a mission among the Yanomami. (See Part 3)
In the same May 1994 issue of the AAA Newsletter, Turner criticizes the version of events given by Chagnon, Wolf, and Fox. In his commentary, Turner further alleges that Chagnon is linked to Charles Brewer-Carias, a Venezuelan naturalist whom Turner describes as "an ex-Cabinet Minister with extensive interests in gold mining." It is here in Turner's 1994 commentary, and not in Tierney's book, that we first see allegations linking Chagnon and Brewer-Carias to clandestine gold mining in Yanomami country.
In the September 1994 issue of the same AAA Newsletter, Chagnon and Brewer-Carias respond to Turner's allegations as well as the anonymously mailed packet. They assert that Brewer-Carias has a record of 30 years of scientific work and has never explored for gold in the Yanomami area (or in any other area occupied by indigenous peoples).
It would thus appear that the accusations against Chagnon in Tierney's forthcoming book were known to both Turner and Sponsel long before that book reached the galley proof stage. Some allegations had already been made in print by Turner as far back as 1994, and others in print by Sponsel in 1998. The accusations are part of a long-standing academic feud that shows no sign of diminishing, rather than recent discoveries by an investigative reporter.
[References: Eric R. Wolf (1994) Demonization of Anthropologists in the Amazon. Anthropology Newsletter (of the American Anthropological Association)/March 1994:2; Robin Fox (1994) Evil Wrought in the Name of Good. Anthropology Newsletter (of the American Anthropological Association)/March 1994:2; Terence Turner (1994) The Yanomami: Truth and Consequences. Anthropology Newsletter (of the American Anthropological Association)/May 1994:46, 48.]
Part 3
Allegations against Neel and Chagnon made by Tierney, Turner, and Sponsel: An Investigation of Motives and Agendas
Allegations of impropriety have been made against Drs. James Neel and Dr. Napoleon Chagnon in two sources: (1) galley proofs of the book Darkness in El Dorado by Patrick Tierney (forthcoming from W.W. Norton & Co. on November 16, 2000); and (2) a widely circulated e-mail letter from two anthropologists, Drs. Terence Turner of Cornell University and Leslie Sponsel of the University of Hawaii-Manoa.
In two previous statements (Parts 1 and 2) related to our ongoing investigation we have presented published source materials, as well as expert testimony from geneticists, physicians, epidemiologists, medical researchers, anthropologists, documentary film specialists, and eyewitnesses who accompanied Drs. Neel and Chagnon to the territory of the Yanomami people. This body of material collected by our team of investigators refutes most claims made by Turner and Sponsel, as well as those already reported by scholars who have now read the galley proofs of Tierney's book.
Given that most of the allegations are untrue, what possible motives would Tierney, Turner, and Sponsel have for making them? As suggested in our second statement, a long paper trail reveals that most of the allegations are not new, but part of ongoing feuds between Chagnon and two sets of detractors:
1. A group of anthropologists who are passionately opposed to Chagnon's use of neo-Darwinian theory to explain Yanomami violence.
2. A group of missionaries who view Chagnon's presence in Venezuela as a threat to their own agenda for the Yanomami.
Both feuds can only be understood by extensive examination of published background material. In this brief statement, we can give only a summary of our team's findings.
1. Science vs. the "Moral Agenda": A Source of Friction in Anthropology
During the last two decades, a schism has developed between anthropologists who believe in a scientific paradigm and those who do not. The first major casualty of that schism was Stanford University's Anthropology Department, which recently split into two departments: one of "Anthropological Sciences" and one of "Cultural and Social Anthropology." Citing Gerald Holton's The Anti-Science Phenomenon (1993), University of Missouri anthropologist Robert Benfer (1996) describes "science" as objective, quantitative, extrapersonalized, and based on proof and consensus; "anti-science" is subjective, qualitative, personalized, moralistic, and based on individual authority with no accommodation of contrary views.
A further development within anti-scientific anthropology has been the growth of a "militant" or "politically committed and morally engaged anthropology" (Scheper-Hughes 1995) which grew out of the moralistic aspects of the non-scientific position. Anthropologist Roy D'Andrade of UC-San Diego describes this as an effort to abandon objective models of the world and change anthropology to a discipline based on moral models. Anthropology's purpose then becomes "to identify what is good and what is bad and to allocate reward and punishment" (D'Andrade 1995:399). In such an approach, debate is not closed by the discovery of the truth, but by the most powerful group's exclusion of their rivals from the community of scholars. D'Andrade calls such an approach "estheticized journalism and moralistic pamphleteering" and suggests that it can be more easily replaced than scientific anthropology. Moral engagement against military dictatorships seems appropriate; against "the guy in the office down the hall," it seems inappropriate. In Turner and Sponsel's letter, moralistic phrases such as "sheer criminality and corruption ... unparalleled in the history of anthropology" leave no doubt as to which side of the debate they occupy. [References: Robert Benfer (1996) AAA Newsletter; Roy D'Andrade (1995) Moral Models in Anthropology. Current Anthropology 36(3):399-408; Nancy Scheper-Hughes (1995) The Primacy of the Ethical: Propositions for a Militant Anthropology. Current Anthropology 36 (3): 409-420.]
2. Leslie Sponsel's Agenda
Two recent essays by Sponsel (1996, 1998) reveal the source of his antipathy toward Chagnon. Sponsel is committed to what he calls "the anthropology of peace," and his agenda seems to be the promotion of a "more nonviolent and peaceful world," a world he believes is "latent in human nature" (Sponsel 1996:115). He opposes what he calls the "Darwinian emphasis on violence and competition" (1996:99), and remains convinced that "nonviolence and peace were likely the norm throughout most of human prehistory and that intrahuman killing was probably rare" (1996:103). In both essays, Sponsel refers to quantification or statistics as "magic."
Sponsel was clearly taken aback when Chagnon published a study showing that Yanomami men who had killed enemies in raids tended to have more wives and children than men who had not (Chagnon 1988). He had to be especially troubled by Chagnon's neo-Darwinian suggestion that by becoming a warrior who had killed, a man might have increased his genetic fitness. Even more disturbing was Chagnon's conclusion that violence was so potent a factor in human society that it "may be the principal driving force behind the evolution of culture" (Chagnon 1988:985).
It is the "political incorrectness" of Chagnon's position that seems to bother moralists the most; by raising the possibility that violence is part of human nature rather than a pathology, Chagnon undermines the moral activists' efforts to promote a less violent world. Sponsel (1998:114) also admits that much of the criticism of Chagnon results from biophobia, which he defines as "an almost automatic reaction against any biological explanation of human behavior, the possibility of biological reductionism, and the associated political implications." Clearly it is the "political implications" that most annoy those with a moralizing agenda.
I don't get it. I mean, why did they fuck with the formula? Where are the car songs? There's only one song about surfing and it's a downer!
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