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BLOOMSBURG STATE COLLEGE
Bloomsburg
Pennsylvania
Anthropology Newsletter
Vol. 3, No. 3
November 1978
Department of Philosophy/Anthropology
Graduate School News Now is the time for graduating seniors to be gathering materials
about graduate schools. Most graduate programs require that all application materials
be in their hands by February 1, especially for those who wish financial aid. The
department has just received the latest Guide to Departments of .Anthropology published by the American Anthropological Association; you should check this book to
find out about the faculty and special programs at graduate schools of anthropology.
You should also make arrangements to take the Graduate Record Examinations as early
as possible. Again, don't just apply to one graduate school; applying to three or
more makes sense in these days when there are dozens of good undergraduate candidates trying to get into graduate school. Also, if you don't have a copy of the
department's question/answer sheet on graduate schools, you should pick one up.
In this regard, the department recently received literature about the graduate
program at SUNY-Binghamton. SUNY-Binghamton offers both the MA and Ph.D. in
anthropology with special programs in human ecology, complex societies, anthropological theory, third world development, culture resource management, linguistics
and archaeology. Summer field schools and opportunities to assist faculty in field
research in Europe, Asia, and the Yucatan Peninsula are available to students,
Fifteen to twenty teaching and graduate assistantships are offered each year as
well as other grants and fellowships. The faculty is composed of twenty members,
some of whom are well-known in the field. Dr. Minderhout has information about this
program if you would like to know more about it. And as this issue was going to
press, information arrived about the MA or Ph.D. in anthropology at Case Western
Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Program ~ are offered by the seventeen faculty
members at Case Western in medical anthropolo ~y, cultural anthropology, and physical
anthropology; the latter deals primarily with fossil hominids and demography.
Welcome to New Majors . • . Debby Cardene, John HcVeigh, Kim Osborne, and Linda Scheier.
Ethnographic Facts In genera¼ Americans are shielded from the fact of death. People
die in hospitals or nursing homes; their remains are embalmed in a process carried
out by specialists whose activity is unseen; the remains are presented briefly in a
sanitized condition and atmosphere and are quickly buried. The natural processes
of death and decay are seldom encountered. Thus when Americans, including anthropologists, go abroad, they are shocked and affronted by the immediacy of death.
For instance, the Berawan of Borneo store the corpse of the loved one in large
earthenware jars or in tree trunk coffins which are stored in the house. As the
corpse decomposes, its secretions are collected in a special vessel and may be
consumed with rice. When the corpse has thoroughly rotteQ the bones are removed
and cleaned and placed in a second jar to be stored once again above ground in the
household. Americans react to this with extreme distaste, yet the Berawan are
equally repelled by our customs. When the anthropologist studying them was asked
about American funerary customs, he told them, concentrating on finding the right
words to describe this unfamiliar topic. " ••• I became aware that a sudden silence
had fallen over my audience. They asked a number of hesitant questions just to be
sure that they had understood me correctly and drew away from me in disgust when
they found out that they had. So shocked were they that I ha~ to backtrack rapidly
and change my story. The topic was never broached again." As it turns out, the
Berawan believe that the soul cannot be divorced from the body until the body has
decomposed; only then can the soul join the land of the dead. Until the soul leaves
2
the body, it is capable of bringing more death in the form of an animated corpse.
The idea that Americans preserve the corpse was horrifying to the Berawan. To them,
America is a land carpeted with potential Zombies.
Socialization and the Anthropologist by Steve James. Socialization is a concept used
by all anthropologists. As a concept;, its usefulness is in explaining how individuals
come to know appropriate modes of cultural behavior. At one time socialization referred only to the process by which a child acquired adult behavior. Recently the
idea has been extended to the learning of all roles, including occupational roles
for the elderly. Socialization is now viewed as a continuous process of learning
from birth to death. Anthropologists have long been concerned with the process and
its importance in establishing behavior. Studies have ranged from descriptions of
socialization into a society or role to judgments concerning the positive or negative
effects of a particular type of socialization. For a moment, let's turn the tables
on anthropologists and look at how they became socialized, or "the socialization of
the anthropologist." Besides filling space in this month's newsletter, it is hoped
that this discussion will be helpful to aspiring anthropologists. It has been said
that socialization is often a bumpy road of indecision. To make sure this doesn't
happen to our "socializing" majors, here are a few tips to make the process run a
little smoother.
Becoming socialized into a role required the learning of certain formal and informal
expectations. Frantz in The Student Anthropologist's Handbook emphasizes the need
for serious learning to be built around three foci: the use of the library, fellow
students and faculty. Since most undergraduate research is paper writing, a good
understanding of the library is important. One should become familiar with the
structure of the library, especially where abstracts, books, periodicals and professional journals are located. The librarians at the Andruss Library are more
than happy to help you find the best sources for your research topic. If anyone is
interested in a deeper knowledge of the library the English Department offers a
Bibliography and Literary Research Course (20.493) which deals with the planning of
scholarly projects and library use. If you have plans to present a formal paper,,
this type of course would be useful. It is wise to remember it is beneficial at
the master's and doctorate level to have some type of research in manuscript or
publication form. This not only shows an interest in the field but also can aid
in being recognized within the field.
Beyond research skills it is important for the student to learn how to organize and
present materials, both in oral and written forms. Too much anthropology has been
unreadable. A good literary style is essential.• Don't throw away those Comp I
handbooks; they serve as good writing guides. Being up to date is also important
to future anthropologists. Keeping abreast of new theories and writings in the field
will give you a better understanding of what anthropology involves. Scientific and
professional journals are helpful in this respect, Most are offered at student discount rates so they don't "bite!' the pocketbook so severely. If they are still too
much, the library has a good selection of anthropology journals. Outside reading
doesn't have to be professional or anthropological in form, any magazine which
sensitizes you to human behavior is appropriate. This type of magazine could be a
Natural History, Human Nature, Psychology Today, National Geographic, or even Time
or Newsweek.
Although a large part of becoming socialized into the anthropologist's role entails
the meeting of required courses, a large part derives from informal experiences.
3
The scope of anthropology takes students into other academic disciplines. Due to this
multi-disciplinary approach it is important to become familiar with the basic working
and theoretical orientations of sister disciplines. The taking of a broad study area
is reconnnended. General education requirements should be taken in both the social
and physical sciences with an emphasis on those courses relating to anthropology.
With sociobiology becoming a major thrust in anthropology. the biological and chemical
sciences will play an increasingly important role in the social sciences. Courses
in those areas will help explain the biological workings of behavior. As much can
be learned from fellow students and faculty as can from the taking of courses. A
sense of camaraderie should be developed between students and faculty, and between
students and fellow students. A sense of close relationship can bring one closer to
the field. Knowing the faculty keeps you in touch with what is happening in the major,
courses to be offered, and conventions being held. This coming summer's southwest
trip would be a good way to become closer to other majors and faculty, besides the
exposure it would give you to Southwest Indian culture. Extracurricular activities
such as the summer trips and the film festivals the department sponsors are important
learning experiences.
Being socialized doesn't have to be a bumpy road. Anthropology can be a very rewarding
experience. Having an interest in the field is probably the most important
factor in becoming an anthropologist!
Magazine Review As noted in the last issue the library has several journals which
deal with anthropology. One of these is Current Anthropology published by the
University of Chicago and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.
Current Anthropology, which may be the most prestigious journal in the field, is
not ava1.lable to student subscription; only research associates, who are "persons
judged by their colleagues to be professionally competent in their relevant
disciplines" may receive the journal. However, students will find much of interest
in the library copies. Each issue contains sev~ral articles, each of which is
submitted to 50 commentators internationally; these connnents are published with
the article. This procedure leads to lively debate which may stretch over several
issues. Shorter articles on research conclusions and numerous notes which discuss
and criticize earlier articles are included. This journal should be a rich source
of data for term papers, especially in anthropology theory.
Book Review by Brent Lees • • • All the Strange Hours: The Excavation of a Life.
by Loren Eiseley. New York. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1975. 273 pp. +7 illustrations.
However far contemporary anthropologists seem to deviate from the norm, however distant
they diverge one from another to explain their theories, most have one feature that
denominates them all-during their growth years: there was an element of stable homelife
and academic bent.
Indeed, some displayed precocious behavior as well as scholastic
superiority. Conditions were such in the lives of Mead, Benedict, Boas, Durkheim and
most others we might name that success in some aspect of academia was probably predictable.
There can be no question that the intensity of their work brought them anxiety and trouble
at various times, but, somehow, the success of their lives seems rooted in a youth enriched
by many_benefits.· Wealth and · privilege are usually absent, but sound training and discipline were available through capable parents and teachers.
Eiseley certainly does not fit this mold. At an age when college was beginning for his
contemporaries, he was emerging from an abysmal, traumatic, nearly tragic adolescence
and heading into the lethal atmosphere of the Jepression-era hobo society. After an
odyssey among the human wrecks he found along the tracks of the Santa Fe, the solitude
of desert exile to regain his health, harrowing escapades with Mexican border police
4
and railroad detectives, he came to an academic life in the Mid-West. This was the
point where most people would say that his road to a Benjamin Franklin Professorship
at the University of Pennsylvania began. His biography tells us differently; the
images of his fears in those leaner times remained with him all his life and he
never outgrew them. Indeed, they colored the discourse of his many writings and
observations. He was a lonely child, and he stayed a lonely child.
Throughout his tale one feels inexor~bly bound to the present. The book is not a
chronological retrospection; it is the holistic exposure of many events any one of
which might be brought to light to illustrate the point at hand. So bound are the
memories of his life that it seems that the present could be the cause of the past.
What direction his mind takes may be geared to a stimulus to which only he can react;
all events are equal in their receipt of storage space and force of recall.
Like
many rites of passage, pain is an instrument of initiation inflicted for the sole
purpose of ingraining the lesson. It is in this allegory we might come to appreciate
how minor events escape our own attention while the least meaningful are indelibly
present in Eiseley's deepest thoughts.
More often than we care to admit, we do have insights of rare perception. Conditioned
as we are to the perceptions of genius, we overlook our own and even hope no one
discovers that we ever had them. This is probably the way life occurred for Eiseley
for the most part. But, as he develops and allows his insights to color his imagery
of evolution and archaeology in this work and others, we become immediately aware of
our own latent abilities. Somehow we let our incomplete backgrounds dictate a position of follower rather than to find proper status. It is the fact that Eiseley
admits strange perceptions that amazes us; it is the fact he was successful in spite
of them that exasperates us; it is the simplicity of these truths that lets us share
his dislike of the pretentious. Those favored academics he did recall shared his
penchant for work and integrity. Mostly, however . the book brings us to realize
that suppressed insights, when brought to light, could become the foundation of a
lively humanism.
It is a humanism made valid by the choices of a man who could, for lack of roots
and opportunity, have chosen to react in kind to an indifferent and cruel social age.
Sociobiology Interviews by Bill Creveling and Jan Dunlevy. Well, here it is, at long
last, our cross-disciplinary survey of selected BSC professors' views of sociobiology or at least part of it. Sixteen professors from the departments of anthropology~
biology, philosophy, psychology, and sociology were sent a letter asking them to reply
with a brief statement of their opinions of sociobiology from the perspective of
their field. Here are the replies of those who were able to meet the deadline for
this issue. We hope these statements will help you clarify your own opinion of
sociobiology. Stay tuned for a continuation of this feature in next month's issue.
(Some of the responses received have been edited because of space considerations DJM.)
Dr. Carlough, Philosophy: As I understand sociobiology, it is rooted in the conviction that genetic factors weigh heavily in determining human social behavior.
Philosoproical determinists have long argued that inheritance and environment control
an individual's response in a given situation, much in the same way as a mechanical
stimulus-response reaction. The differences between this view and the sociobiological
perspective, as I see it, are, first, sociobiology stresses especially the factor of
inheritance, and, secondly, it appears to be concerned with forms of social behavior
that had been traditionally seen as culturally conditioned.
'
5
Difficult ethical questions are raised by these hypotheses. Two may be mentioned
briefly. Some have condemned sociobiology as an attempt to ju~tify racist and
sexist attitudes on the grounds that they are genetically based, and not learned
reactions, Others are disturbed by the possibility of experim~ntation on humans
(genetic alteration) as a means of testing these principles. Both are legitimate
concerns, and the . potential dangers are frightening. I don't think we need fear a
scientific theory nor searching for the truth that it may represent, but we do need
to avoid drawing unwarranted and false implications from limited and insufficient
evidence, Unfortunately it is not easy to determine the validity of a hypothesis
involving human behavior when experimentation on humans is morally unacceptable.
I
(
Dr. Cole, Biology: Sociobiology is an attempt, albeit controversial, to bridge
the unfortunate dicotomy that exists in interpreting data on population behavior as
strictly experiential or genetically controlled. I believe that both genetic endowment and the environment contribute to sociological dynamics including many activities related to human behavior.
Frankly, the evidence is still somewhat shakey in support to genetically influenced
group behavior that is adaptive, but as our thinking changes toward the possibility
of this existing and being retained in the gene pool, we will find that it is a more
conunon contributor to group behavior - at least, group behavior that is adaptive.
Certainly genetic endowm,ent has been shown to be adaptive for the individual.
Dr, Farber, Biology: No opinion yet! I have been too busy with active pursuits
in biology to be concerned with "socio"-biology. Not that I'm not interested in
the "new" science; I haven't had time to develop a solid op1.m.on, Note: A theory
has more in the way of supporting evidence, i.e., atomic theory, gene theory, cell
theory, microbe theory, organic evolution, etc.
Dr. Minderhout, Anthropology: With my linguisi~Lcs training, especially in the
Chomskian mode, I have always been something cf a sociobiologist, Linguists since
1957 have asserted that language universals exist, that language must have an underlying genetic base which emerges through maturation and exposure. It seems reasonable
to me to clai[l\ as sociobiologists do, that human behavior is subject to the same laws
of evolution as human physical features, In general I find the work of sociobiologists
to be measured and conservative in its claims - much more so in fact than many of
sociobiology's critics, However, the cultural anthropologist side of me finds other
areas of study more interesting - such as human modifiability and diversity and the
impact of cultural institutions on human behavior,
Mr. Reeder, Anthropology: My opinions on sociobiology have been summarized by
Lionel Tiger -- quoting liberally: "The issue is not instincts in any old-fashioned
sense; initiation ceremonies and male rituals are not "instinctive". They emerge
from the biology of an animal programmed to produce them once it is given the
appropriate stimuli. The human organism is like a computer that is set up or wired up
in a particular way. It is always in a state of readiness ••• at successive poipts
in the life cycle •.• to process certain kinds of information. To be sure the information has to be of a specific kind in order to be processed, but its content can
vary greatly••• "
We have a culture-acquisition device constraining us to produce recognizable and
analyzable human culture just as we must produce recognizable human languages, however · varied the local manifestations. Just as a child can learn only a language that
follows the "normal" rules of grammar for human languages, he can learn only a grammar
of behavior that follows the parallel rules of biogrammar. This view of human behavior
is different from that of the culturalists or behaviorists. It makes the organism an
.
•
6
active, searching and stubborn participant in the learning process.
not blank at all; it is doin g a lot of its own writing!
The slate here is
Once people actually doubted that there was any physical continuity between humans and
animals; today many scientists, paid and trained to know better, claim that there is no
significant and analyzable continuity between the behavior of humans and animals.
Fifty years frcxn now the latter assertion will appear to behavioral science as ridiculous as the former is to us now.
Mr. Solenberger, Anthropology: I am glad to note student interest in this topic because
it should lead to the evaluation of scxne fundamental theories about human nature which
it is the responsibility of anthropology to formulate. Our science stands connnitted
to a holistic view of man which includes his physical nature as well as his life experience as bases for behavior. Anthropologists have never accepted the oversimplified
tabula rasa-plus-conditioning theory of the behaviorists. Socio-biology, if the term is
used in a general sense, seems a new word for much that anthropology has taught for a
long time, that human institutions have arisen to meet basic biological needs and drives
is scarcely a new idea.
Within the present generation there has been growing appreciation of innate genetic
predisposition toward behavior such as speech, formerly thought of as entirely learned.
Recent studies of children brought up in unstimulating, culturally deprived villages in
Central America indicate that "readiness" to do school work at an appropriate age may
be less dependent on cultural enrichment than has been thought. In class I have used as
an illustration of what seems to be a fairly specific "instinct" my own automatic reaction
of undefined agitation and alarm due to smelling smoke from a· distant forest fire, before
I either saw or heard it - or even realized that my uneasiness was due to an odor.
The whole study of sociobiology, however, must be carried on in the light of the longstanding controversy over "nature" vs. "nurture" as main determinants of human behavior.
A balanced position on this seems to me inherent in the holistic stance of anthropology.
Even such scientific sociobiolog ists as Edward 0. Wilson and Robert L. Trivers seem
guilty of over simplifications reminiscent of the 19th century "social Darwinist"
tooth-and-claw survival of the fittest (rather than of the best adapted - as P. Kropotkin points out in Mutual Aid). It seems most unlikely that either humans or animals
have instinctive, unconscious knowledge of the proportion of DNA they share with other
individuals, which they would need to promote its survival "altruistically". Students
undertaking a study of sociobiology should read also the serious attacks on it which
have been made by such well-qualified scholars as Ashley Montagu and Marshall Sahlins
(see summary on sociobiology in Cultural Anthropology (2nd ed., 1978) by Conrad P.
Kottak, p. 232-235).
f
•
•
Bloomsburg
Pennsylvania
Anthropology Newsletter
Vol. 3, No. 3
November 1978
Department of Philosophy/Anthropology
Graduate School News Now is the time for graduating seniors to be gathering materials
about graduate schools. Most graduate programs require that all application materials
be in their hands by February 1, especially for those who wish financial aid. The
department has just received the latest Guide to Departments of .Anthropology published by the American Anthropological Association; you should check this book to
find out about the faculty and special programs at graduate schools of anthropology.
You should also make arrangements to take the Graduate Record Examinations as early
as possible. Again, don't just apply to one graduate school; applying to three or
more makes sense in these days when there are dozens of good undergraduate candidates trying to get into graduate school. Also, if you don't have a copy of the
department's question/answer sheet on graduate schools, you should pick one up.
In this regard, the department recently received literature about the graduate
program at SUNY-Binghamton. SUNY-Binghamton offers both the MA and Ph.D. in
anthropology with special programs in human ecology, complex societies, anthropological theory, third world development, culture resource management, linguistics
and archaeology. Summer field schools and opportunities to assist faculty in field
research in Europe, Asia, and the Yucatan Peninsula are available to students,
Fifteen to twenty teaching and graduate assistantships are offered each year as
well as other grants and fellowships. The faculty is composed of twenty members,
some of whom are well-known in the field. Dr. Minderhout has information about this
program if you would like to know more about it. And as this issue was going to
press, information arrived about the MA or Ph.D. in anthropology at Case Western
Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Program ~ are offered by the seventeen faculty
members at Case Western in medical anthropolo ~y, cultural anthropology, and physical
anthropology; the latter deals primarily with fossil hominids and demography.
Welcome to New Majors . • . Debby Cardene, John HcVeigh, Kim Osborne, and Linda Scheier.
Ethnographic Facts In genera¼ Americans are shielded from the fact of death. People
die in hospitals or nursing homes; their remains are embalmed in a process carried
out by specialists whose activity is unseen; the remains are presented briefly in a
sanitized condition and atmosphere and are quickly buried. The natural processes
of death and decay are seldom encountered. Thus when Americans, including anthropologists, go abroad, they are shocked and affronted by the immediacy of death.
For instance, the Berawan of Borneo store the corpse of the loved one in large
earthenware jars or in tree trunk coffins which are stored in the house. As the
corpse decomposes, its secretions are collected in a special vessel and may be
consumed with rice. When the corpse has thoroughly rotteQ the bones are removed
and cleaned and placed in a second jar to be stored once again above ground in the
household. Americans react to this with extreme distaste, yet the Berawan are
equally repelled by our customs. When the anthropologist studying them was asked
about American funerary customs, he told them, concentrating on finding the right
words to describe this unfamiliar topic. " ••• I became aware that a sudden silence
had fallen over my audience. They asked a number of hesitant questions just to be
sure that they had understood me correctly and drew away from me in disgust when
they found out that they had. So shocked were they that I ha~ to backtrack rapidly
and change my story. The topic was never broached again." As it turns out, the
Berawan believe that the soul cannot be divorced from the body until the body has
decomposed; only then can the soul join the land of the dead. Until the soul leaves
2
the body, it is capable of bringing more death in the form of an animated corpse.
The idea that Americans preserve the corpse was horrifying to the Berawan. To them,
America is a land carpeted with potential Zombies.
Socialization and the Anthropologist by Steve James. Socialization is a concept used
by all anthropologists. As a concept;, its usefulness is in explaining how individuals
come to know appropriate modes of cultural behavior. At one time socialization referred only to the process by which a child acquired adult behavior. Recently the
idea has been extended to the learning of all roles, including occupational roles
for the elderly. Socialization is now viewed as a continuous process of learning
from birth to death. Anthropologists have long been concerned with the process and
its importance in establishing behavior. Studies have ranged from descriptions of
socialization into a society or role to judgments concerning the positive or negative
effects of a particular type of socialization. For a moment, let's turn the tables
on anthropologists and look at how they became socialized, or "the socialization of
the anthropologist." Besides filling space in this month's newsletter, it is hoped
that this discussion will be helpful to aspiring anthropologists. It has been said
that socialization is often a bumpy road of indecision. To make sure this doesn't
happen to our "socializing" majors, here are a few tips to make the process run a
little smoother.
Becoming socialized into a role required the learning of certain formal and informal
expectations. Frantz in The Student Anthropologist's Handbook emphasizes the need
for serious learning to be built around three foci: the use of the library, fellow
students and faculty. Since most undergraduate research is paper writing, a good
understanding of the library is important. One should become familiar with the
structure of the library, especially where abstracts, books, periodicals and professional journals are located. The librarians at the Andruss Library are more
than happy to help you find the best sources for your research topic. If anyone is
interested in a deeper knowledge of the library the English Department offers a
Bibliography and Literary Research Course (20.493) which deals with the planning of
scholarly projects and library use. If you have plans to present a formal paper,,
this type of course would be useful. It is wise to remember it is beneficial at
the master's and doctorate level to have some type of research in manuscript or
publication form. This not only shows an interest in the field but also can aid
in being recognized within the field.
Beyond research skills it is important for the student to learn how to organize and
present materials, both in oral and written forms. Too much anthropology has been
unreadable. A good literary style is essential.• Don't throw away those Comp I
handbooks; they serve as good writing guides. Being up to date is also important
to future anthropologists. Keeping abreast of new theories and writings in the field
will give you a better understanding of what anthropology involves. Scientific and
professional journals are helpful in this respect, Most are offered at student discount rates so they don't "bite!' the pocketbook so severely. If they are still too
much, the library has a good selection of anthropology journals. Outside reading
doesn't have to be professional or anthropological in form, any magazine which
sensitizes you to human behavior is appropriate. This type of magazine could be a
Natural History, Human Nature, Psychology Today, National Geographic, or even Time
or Newsweek.
Although a large part of becoming socialized into the anthropologist's role entails
the meeting of required courses, a large part derives from informal experiences.
3
The scope of anthropology takes students into other academic disciplines. Due to this
multi-disciplinary approach it is important to become familiar with the basic working
and theoretical orientations of sister disciplines. The taking of a broad study area
is reconnnended. General education requirements should be taken in both the social
and physical sciences with an emphasis on those courses relating to anthropology.
With sociobiology becoming a major thrust in anthropology. the biological and chemical
sciences will play an increasingly important role in the social sciences. Courses
in those areas will help explain the biological workings of behavior. As much can
be learned from fellow students and faculty as can from the taking of courses. A
sense of camaraderie should be developed between students and faculty, and between
students and fellow students. A sense of close relationship can bring one closer to
the field. Knowing the faculty keeps you in touch with what is happening in the major,
courses to be offered, and conventions being held. This coming summer's southwest
trip would be a good way to become closer to other majors and faculty, besides the
exposure it would give you to Southwest Indian culture. Extracurricular activities
such as the summer trips and the film festivals the department sponsors are important
learning experiences.
Being socialized doesn't have to be a bumpy road. Anthropology can be a very rewarding
experience. Having an interest in the field is probably the most important
factor in becoming an anthropologist!
Magazine Review As noted in the last issue the library has several journals which
deal with anthropology. One of these is Current Anthropology published by the
University of Chicago and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.
Current Anthropology, which may be the most prestigious journal in the field, is
not ava1.lable to student subscription; only research associates, who are "persons
judged by their colleagues to be professionally competent in their relevant
disciplines" may receive the journal. However, students will find much of interest
in the library copies. Each issue contains sev~ral articles, each of which is
submitted to 50 commentators internationally; these connnents are published with
the article. This procedure leads to lively debate which may stretch over several
issues. Shorter articles on research conclusions and numerous notes which discuss
and criticize earlier articles are included. This journal should be a rich source
of data for term papers, especially in anthropology theory.
Book Review by Brent Lees • • • All the Strange Hours: The Excavation of a Life.
by Loren Eiseley. New York. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1975. 273 pp. +7 illustrations.
However far contemporary anthropologists seem to deviate from the norm, however distant
they diverge one from another to explain their theories, most have one feature that
denominates them all-during their growth years: there was an element of stable homelife
and academic bent.
Indeed, some displayed precocious behavior as well as scholastic
superiority. Conditions were such in the lives of Mead, Benedict, Boas, Durkheim and
most others we might name that success in some aspect of academia was probably predictable.
There can be no question that the intensity of their work brought them anxiety and trouble
at various times, but, somehow, the success of their lives seems rooted in a youth enriched
by many_benefits.· Wealth and · privilege are usually absent, but sound training and discipline were available through capable parents and teachers.
Eiseley certainly does not fit this mold. At an age when college was beginning for his
contemporaries, he was emerging from an abysmal, traumatic, nearly tragic adolescence
and heading into the lethal atmosphere of the Jepression-era hobo society. After an
odyssey among the human wrecks he found along the tracks of the Santa Fe, the solitude
of desert exile to regain his health, harrowing escapades with Mexican border police
4
and railroad detectives, he came to an academic life in the Mid-West. This was the
point where most people would say that his road to a Benjamin Franklin Professorship
at the University of Pennsylvania began. His biography tells us differently; the
images of his fears in those leaner times remained with him all his life and he
never outgrew them. Indeed, they colored the discourse of his many writings and
observations. He was a lonely child, and he stayed a lonely child.
Throughout his tale one feels inexor~bly bound to the present. The book is not a
chronological retrospection; it is the holistic exposure of many events any one of
which might be brought to light to illustrate the point at hand. So bound are the
memories of his life that it seems that the present could be the cause of the past.
What direction his mind takes may be geared to a stimulus to which only he can react;
all events are equal in their receipt of storage space and force of recall.
Like
many rites of passage, pain is an instrument of initiation inflicted for the sole
purpose of ingraining the lesson. It is in this allegory we might come to appreciate
how minor events escape our own attention while the least meaningful are indelibly
present in Eiseley's deepest thoughts.
More often than we care to admit, we do have insights of rare perception. Conditioned
as we are to the perceptions of genius, we overlook our own and even hope no one
discovers that we ever had them. This is probably the way life occurred for Eiseley
for the most part. But, as he develops and allows his insights to color his imagery
of evolution and archaeology in this work and others, we become immediately aware of
our own latent abilities. Somehow we let our incomplete backgrounds dictate a position of follower rather than to find proper status. It is the fact that Eiseley
admits strange perceptions that amazes us; it is the fact he was successful in spite
of them that exasperates us; it is the simplicity of these truths that lets us share
his dislike of the pretentious. Those favored academics he did recall shared his
penchant for work and integrity. Mostly, however . the book brings us to realize
that suppressed insights, when brought to light, could become the foundation of a
lively humanism.
It is a humanism made valid by the choices of a man who could, for lack of roots
and opportunity, have chosen to react in kind to an indifferent and cruel social age.
Sociobiology Interviews by Bill Creveling and Jan Dunlevy. Well, here it is, at long
last, our cross-disciplinary survey of selected BSC professors' views of sociobiology or at least part of it. Sixteen professors from the departments of anthropology~
biology, philosophy, psychology, and sociology were sent a letter asking them to reply
with a brief statement of their opinions of sociobiology from the perspective of
their field. Here are the replies of those who were able to meet the deadline for
this issue. We hope these statements will help you clarify your own opinion of
sociobiology. Stay tuned for a continuation of this feature in next month's issue.
(Some of the responses received have been edited because of space considerations DJM.)
Dr. Carlough, Philosophy: As I understand sociobiology, it is rooted in the conviction that genetic factors weigh heavily in determining human social behavior.
Philosoproical determinists have long argued that inheritance and environment control
an individual's response in a given situation, much in the same way as a mechanical
stimulus-response reaction. The differences between this view and the sociobiological
perspective, as I see it, are, first, sociobiology stresses especially the factor of
inheritance, and, secondly, it appears to be concerned with forms of social behavior
that had been traditionally seen as culturally conditioned.
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Difficult ethical questions are raised by these hypotheses. Two may be mentioned
briefly. Some have condemned sociobiology as an attempt to ju~tify racist and
sexist attitudes on the grounds that they are genetically based, and not learned
reactions, Others are disturbed by the possibility of experim~ntation on humans
(genetic alteration) as a means of testing these principles. Both are legitimate
concerns, and the . potential dangers are frightening. I don't think we need fear a
scientific theory nor searching for the truth that it may represent, but we do need
to avoid drawing unwarranted and false implications from limited and insufficient
evidence, Unfortunately it is not easy to determine the validity of a hypothesis
involving human behavior when experimentation on humans is morally unacceptable.
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Dr. Cole, Biology: Sociobiology is an attempt, albeit controversial, to bridge
the unfortunate dicotomy that exists in interpreting data on population behavior as
strictly experiential or genetically controlled. I believe that both genetic endowment and the environment contribute to sociological dynamics including many activities related to human behavior.
Frankly, the evidence is still somewhat shakey in support to genetically influenced
group behavior that is adaptive, but as our thinking changes toward the possibility
of this existing and being retained in the gene pool, we will find that it is a more
conunon contributor to group behavior - at least, group behavior that is adaptive.
Certainly genetic endowm,ent has been shown to be adaptive for the individual.
Dr, Farber, Biology: No opinion yet! I have been too busy with active pursuits
in biology to be concerned with "socio"-biology. Not that I'm not interested in
the "new" science; I haven't had time to develop a solid op1.m.on, Note: A theory
has more in the way of supporting evidence, i.e., atomic theory, gene theory, cell
theory, microbe theory, organic evolution, etc.
Dr. Minderhout, Anthropology: With my linguisi~Lcs training, especially in the
Chomskian mode, I have always been something cf a sociobiologist, Linguists since
1957 have asserted that language universals exist, that language must have an underlying genetic base which emerges through maturation and exposure. It seems reasonable
to me to clai[l\ as sociobiologists do, that human behavior is subject to the same laws
of evolution as human physical features, In general I find the work of sociobiologists
to be measured and conservative in its claims - much more so in fact than many of
sociobiology's critics, However, the cultural anthropologist side of me finds other
areas of study more interesting - such as human modifiability and diversity and the
impact of cultural institutions on human behavior,
Mr. Reeder, Anthropology: My opinions on sociobiology have been summarized by
Lionel Tiger -- quoting liberally: "The issue is not instincts in any old-fashioned
sense; initiation ceremonies and male rituals are not "instinctive". They emerge
from the biology of an animal programmed to produce them once it is given the
appropriate stimuli. The human organism is like a computer that is set up or wired up
in a particular way. It is always in a state of readiness ••• at successive poipts
in the life cycle •.• to process certain kinds of information. To be sure the information has to be of a specific kind in order to be processed, but its content can
vary greatly••• "
We have a culture-acquisition device constraining us to produce recognizable and
analyzable human culture just as we must produce recognizable human languages, however · varied the local manifestations. Just as a child can learn only a language that
follows the "normal" rules of grammar for human languages, he can learn only a grammar
of behavior that follows the parallel rules of biogrammar. This view of human behavior
is different from that of the culturalists or behaviorists. It makes the organism an
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active, searching and stubborn participant in the learning process.
not blank at all; it is doin g a lot of its own writing!
The slate here is
Once people actually doubted that there was any physical continuity between humans and
animals; today many scientists, paid and trained to know better, claim that there is no
significant and analyzable continuity between the behavior of humans and animals.
Fifty years frcxn now the latter assertion will appear to behavioral science as ridiculous as the former is to us now.
Mr. Solenberger, Anthropology: I am glad to note student interest in this topic because
it should lead to the evaluation of scxne fundamental theories about human nature which
it is the responsibility of anthropology to formulate. Our science stands connnitted
to a holistic view of man which includes his physical nature as well as his life experience as bases for behavior. Anthropologists have never accepted the oversimplified
tabula rasa-plus-conditioning theory of the behaviorists. Socio-biology, if the term is
used in a general sense, seems a new word for much that anthropology has taught for a
long time, that human institutions have arisen to meet basic biological needs and drives
is scarcely a new idea.
Within the present generation there has been growing appreciation of innate genetic
predisposition toward behavior such as speech, formerly thought of as entirely learned.
Recent studies of children brought up in unstimulating, culturally deprived villages in
Central America indicate that "readiness" to do school work at an appropriate age may
be less dependent on cultural enrichment than has been thought. In class I have used as
an illustration of what seems to be a fairly specific "instinct" my own automatic reaction
of undefined agitation and alarm due to smelling smoke from a· distant forest fire, before
I either saw or heard it - or even realized that my uneasiness was due to an odor.
The whole study of sociobiology, however, must be carried on in the light of the longstanding controversy over "nature" vs. "nurture" as main determinants of human behavior.
A balanced position on this seems to me inherent in the holistic stance of anthropology.
Even such scientific sociobiolog ists as Edward 0. Wilson and Robert L. Trivers seem
guilty of over simplifications reminiscent of the 19th century "social Darwinist"
tooth-and-claw survival of the fittest (rather than of the best adapted - as P. Kropotkin points out in Mutual Aid). It seems most unlikely that either humans or animals
have instinctive, unconscious knowledge of the proportion of DNA they share with other
individuals, which they would need to promote its survival "altruistically". Students
undertaking a study of sociobiology should read also the serious attacks on it which
have been made by such well-qualified scholars as Ashley Montagu and Marshall Sahlins
(see summary on sociobiology in Cultural Anthropology (2nd ed., 1978) by Conrad P.
Kottak, p. 232-235).
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