Author: dlende

American Association for the Advancement of Science

The American Association for the Advancement of Science proudly declares itself the world’s largest scientific organization. As the publisher of Science, they’ve got plenty to be proud about. But for this blog, it’s the online resources they offer that are of interest.

Here are some highlights.

Evolution Resources: One stop shopping from the AAAS on evolution and the public, including education, religion, and intelligent design

The Science Inside: Obesity Comprehensive book on what’s known about obesity (part of Healthy People Library Project)

Healthy People Library Project, Online Books Summaries of science research on seven different health disorders

Brent Garland, Neurosciences and the Law: Brain, Mind and the Scales of Justice Summary of a AAAS meeting, published in 2004

The AAAS also has assorted programs and and activities as well as a number of publications, some free and online, others not.

War on the Climate?!

Charles M. Blow has an op-ed in the New York Times today entitled Farewell, Fair Weather. He opens by outlining how the United States has experienced more extreme weather than other places in recent decades. Blow then says that we are to blame, and things will probably get worse.

Okay, I’m nodding along, it’s a reasonable argument to make, and he highlights work by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the recent White House report (as he notes, released “years late and under pressure”). The Associated Press piece on that report had scientists’ comments like these: “a litany of bad news in store for the U.S” and “It basically says the America we’ve known we can no longer count on. It’s a pretty dramatic picture of all kinds of change rippling through natural systems across the country. And all of that has implications for people.”

Charles Blow then comes to his main argument: “This increase [in extreme weather] is deadly and disruptive — and could become economically unbearable.” Okay, I’m nodding again.

But then comes the kicker: “This surge in disasters and attendant costs is yet another reason we need to declare a coordinated war on climate change akin to the wars on drugs and terror. It’s a matter of national security.”

WTF!!!! Sorry for the language, but we all know how successful the war on drugs and the war on terror have been. Not very. But at least these have some identifiable bad guys–drug dealers and terrorists. Now we’re going to go get those evil climate changers?! Or bash the ozone layer back into submission, because it’s dared to get uppity?

Drugs, terror, the climate–these all require systemic change, and the war model just isn’t the right metaphor for that. The Us vs. Them and Brute Force assumptions don’t work well for systemic change. Obviously I think anthropology can help, but at the very least an economic model recognizes both supply and demand in the market and a political model implies the need for negotiation and consensus to help create concerted action. About the best I can say is that declaring a war might help in getting people to think about making sacrifices. But it won’t make us more secure when the change is already among us. Bush flew over New Orleans as if it were a war zone. What did that do?

The Emerging Moral Psychology

Dan Jones writes on The Emerging Moral Psychology in April’s Prospect Magazine, an article I came across through The Situationist. He could just have easily called it the emerging moral neuroanthropology, for here is his opening, “Philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, economists, primatologists and anthropologists, all borrowing liberally from each others’ insights, are putting together a novel picture of morality… The picture emerging shows the moral sense to be the product of biologically evolved and culturally sensitive brain systems that together make up the human ‘moral faculty’.”

Jones takes us through “hot morality,” morality guided by intuitions and emotions and not universal laws, drawing on the work of Jonathan Haidt. Then we get “the tale of two faculties,” highlighting the dual processing view (emotion and cognition) of Joshua Greene. Finally we get “A Moral Grammar” via Marc Hauser. Hauser gives us a moral code based on three principles derived from 5000 people who have taken the Moral Sense Test worldwide via Internet (no snarky comments as Greg might say):

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Maurice Bloch and Everyday, Relevant Anthropology

Maximilian Forte over at Open Anthropology recently covered an interview with Maurice Bloch that appeared in Eurozine. In his summary, Forte highlights certain parts of the interview in a way which struck me as quite relevant to neuroanthropology. Interestingly, Forte had a similarly positive reaction to Bloch’s statements, even though his Open Anthropology project is focused on a different sort of public engagement and synthetic approach than what we do here.

Here’s why, captured in one of the more striking lines from Bloch: “I would consider that all human beings are anthropologists: all are concerned with the general theoretical questions about the nature of human beings, about explanations of diversity and similarity. Of course I’m not worried about the continuation of this form of anthropology.”

What about anthropology in its present, institutional form? There, things are not so clear. Bloch makes this provocative statement, “anthropologists have not been addressing those questions that are burning questions for human beings. Other people have done it and have not made use of what anthropologists have learned… I think we should engage with the general questions that people are ask, rather than spending our time navel gazing.”

On the applied side, particularly with regards to development and anthropology, Bloch tells us that the anthropologists’ “role is one of caution. Because we have learned that easy answers don’t work. So we anthropologists will always have a negative role [in public debates] and I think that’s right.” In contrast, however, the development and conservation experts who come in with big money, big ideologies and big power do not necessarily want to hear the “it’s complicated” anthropology message.

Continue reading “Maurice Bloch and Everyday, Relevant Anthropology”

Hosting Four Stone Hearth

This coming Wednesday June 4th, Neuroanthropology will host the next Four Stone Hearth, the anthropology blog carnival that rounds up the best and the brightest of the anthro blogosphere. remote central hosted the last version, which was a most worthy edition.

If you’d like to contribute something, please either email the host site (just remove the spaces and change the at): submit at fourstonehearth.net or send something to Greg (greg.downey at mq.edu.au). We want to put together a wide-ranging edition, with both a four field and a neuroanth flavor. Perhaps a four field umami with a dash of neuroanth sweet & sour?

We look forward to seeing your submissions!

Daniel and Greg