Cultural Anthopologist's Problems With "Settled Science" in His Field Mirror Mark Steyn's Difficulties With Climate Change Theocrat Michael Mann

Climate change isn't the only area given to adamantine pronouncement. In his 2013 book Noble Savages, cultural anthropologist Napoleon A. Chagnon describes the pickle he got into when his work--in 1963, be began living amongst and studying a primitive people found in Brazil and Venezuela--failed to line up with the "settled science" of the cultural anthropology authorities/authoritarians:

   My observation that Yanomamö men fought mostly over women and, equally important, that these conflicts and their outcomes had important consequences for understanding Yanomamö culture and society, disturbed some of my fellow cultural anthropologists. Why? As I look back on the history of my research, I was saying not just one, but two things that deeply concerned these anthropologists and that were considered to be controversial at the time.

   The first was that warfare was common among the Yanomamö and that it apparently was not caused by capitalist exploitation, nor was it a reaction to oppression by Western colonial powers. This raised the possibility that warfare was, in a sense, a "natural" or "predictable" condition among tribesman who had not been exposed to or corrupted by capitalistic, industrialized and/or colonial cultures.

  The second possibility raised was that lethal conflicts between groups might not be explicable by citing "shortages of scarce strategic material resources," considered by anthropologists and other social scientists to be the only legitimate "scientific" reason for human conflict and warfare.

Rather like the Michael Manns of the world insisting that humankind's--and, more specifically, the developed world's--humungous carbon footprint is the only legitimate "scientific" reason for global climate change, no?

After continuing for several more paragraphs about how his research conflicted with the foregone conclusions of the leaders in his field, Chagnon sums up his experience like this:

   During the weeks, months, and years I spent among the Yanomamö I began to explore and document their lives in statistical and demographic ways--and my doubts about much of what I learned about anthropology from my professors only grew.

   One lesson that I eventually learned from the history of my own anthropological research and the controversies it caused was that cultural anthropology did not fit a traditional scientific definition where facts are established by observations that are verified by others to establish patterns and, if empirical observations by others do not verify the original observations, then efforts must be made to account for the differences to the observations. Instead, anthropology is more like a religion. Indeed, the organizational and intellectual structure of a large fraction of cultural anthropology is best understood if viewed as an academic fraternity that intimidates and suppresses dissent, usually by declaring that the dissenter is guilty of conduct that is unethical, immoral--or Darwinian.

   Many cultural anthropologists today are afraid to make even timid challenges to this authority and are very careful to describe their findings in cautiously chosen words that are frequently vague so as not to give people "the wrong impression" or, more important, not to invite the suspicion or condemnation of the ayatollahs of anthropology, the Thought Police who guard the received wisdoms.

Shocking, no? Well, it was shocking to me, anyway. In fact, until I read it the other day, I had no idea that cultural anthropology was a viper's nest that married the worst of the religion of climate change to the Marxist-tinged authoritarianism of Canada's wretched "human rights" system. It just goes to show what can happen when an area becomes politicized--genuine scientific inquiry and common sense are deemed "blasphemous," and die a quiet death.