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Wednesday, March 13. 2013

When political ideology trumps objective study in academia

How Napoleon Chagnon Became Our Most Controversial Anthropologist.


Apparently Chagnon's field research did not support Marxist interpretations of stone-age tribal behavior, so he was attacked and smeared. Is there a Marxist interpretation for academia's tribal warfare against Chagnon?


Of course, Edward O. Wilson got some of the same treatment, but not quite as diabolical, for his work on sociobiology. There are lots of Thought Police in academia.

Posted by The Barrister in Education, Politics at 12:54 | Comments (5) | Trackbacks (0)

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Shouldn't that be "Marxist stone-age interpretations of tribal behavior"?
#1 chuck on 2013-03-13 13:29 (Reply)
There is a book out called The Spirit Society that is just one of many being pushed now to go with all the Common Core education reforms. It insists that a cooperative economy not based on markets but on human needs can work. It cites to a different book on Stone Age Economics as the support. As anyone who has studied tribal societies knows envy is a huge problem that restrains being different or allows anything other than a self-sufficiency economy. No mass prosperity.

So yes it is inconvenient at the precise moment when we have a coordinated global assault through UNESCO and the OECD with the US firmly on board to transition to a Nordic like welfare state through changes in our ed system for someone to point out that all the premises are false.

Similar problem with the CAGW excuse for all the changes with no widespread temp increases and now those pesky Climategate emails again.
#2 Robin (Link) on 2013-03-13 14:42 (Reply)
There's no doubt in my mind that a cooperative economy based on human needs rather than competition can work as well as the typical Stone Age economy. It will be great for the environment, too, as it will result in the starvation of 99% of the world's population before we stabilize. And it has inchoate spiritual benefits. Win-win-win.
#2.1 Texan99 (Link) on 2013-03-14 09:57 (Reply)
Nothing good can come of squirt guns.

That's why they were banned at my high school.

Regular rifles were okay. We carried them on the school bus on days when rifle club met, or had a meet with another school.

Northern NJ, 10 miles from NYC.
#3 rhhardin (Link) on 2013-03-13 14:55 (Reply)
It's sooooooo much fun to be a Thought Policeman!
#4 Sam L. on 2013-03-13 19:25 (Reply)

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