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~ PINKERITE TALKS TO ANTHROPOLOGISTS ~
The Brian Ferguson Interview
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcript from interview of R. Brian Ferguson by John Horgan

Science Saturday: The Anthropology of War | John Horgan & Brian Ferguson [Science Saturday]

00:01
Brian are you there
00:05
no but I've been there wow that's an
00:10
awfully cryptic way to start a blogging
00:12
head segment segment you can hear
00:15
something like that in the movie okay
00:18
I'll introduce myself and then I'll ask
00:20
you to introduce yourself Brian my name
00:23
is John Morgan and I'm a science
00:25
journalist and science correspondent for
00:29
blogging heads TV and with me is an
00:33
anthropologist whom I've known I just
00:36
realized this morning for 20 years so
00:39
the first time I talked to you Brian was
00:41
in 1988 when I was doing a story on
00:44
tribal warfare for Scientific American
00:47
we'll get into that a little later but
00:49
could you just briefly introduce
00:51
yourself to the blogging heads audience
00:54
I am a cultural anthropologist although
00:57
kind of a general anthropologist - a
01:00
professor at Rutgers University in
01:02
Newark and I teach on you know
01:05
bread-and-butter courses and courses on
01:06
war and horses on police and other kinds
01:09
of conflicted situations but I've been
01:11
studying more for quite a long time so
01:13
how did you so I know you primarily
01:16
through your writings about so-called
01:19
primitive warfare although I think
01:21
anthropology don't like to use that word
01:23
primitive anymore
01:24
but how did you get interested in the
01:26
Anthropology of war in the first place
01:28
and when did you get interested in
01:31
well I was 18 in 1969 and so Vietnam was
01:40
on my mind like everybody else's then I
01:43
went to Columbia College where you also
01:46
heard about it decided I liked
01:49
anthropology in general and went on to
01:52
graduate school in anthropology and when
01:55
I got into graduate school the
01:56
anthropology of war we had really just
01:59
come together there really was not much
02:02
you could call the anthropology of war
02:03
prior to about 1966-67 or so and in the
02:07
Columbia anthropology department were
02:09
three of the leading anthropologists on
02:13
the subject Marvin Harris and Morton
02:15
freed and Robert Murphy who had just put
02:17
out sort of the first anthropology book
02:19
on war in quite a long time so there was
02:22
a there was inspiration there and when
02:26
one day a professor in my one of my
02:28
classes said I didn't have to become a
02:31
specialist in one area of the world or
02:33
another that I could become a specialist
02:35
in a topic
02:36
it seemed to me war was the topic I
02:38
wanted to be a specialist in so that's
02:41
what I've been doing and I think that
02:42
the significant thing about that is that
02:44
I had the luck to be at the right place
02:47
at the right time I was at Columbia got
02:51
involved in this when the field was
02:53
still very small so I could kind of wrap
02:55
my arms around the whole thing to what
02:58
extent was send oh sorry go ahead
02:59
well I was going to state to what extent
03:01
was the field politicized then I mean in
03:05
terms of hawks and doves people who sort
03:07
of wanted to saw war as a this social
03:10
ill that needed to be eradicated versus
03:15
as opposed to just sort of studying it
03:17
as a fascinating human phenomenon
03:20
well most of the stuff that happened at
03:24
Columbia the people who are Columbia
03:26
we're very much interested in some of
03:28
the political aspects of it a lot of
03:30
them were involved in some of the
03:31
teachings against Vietnam but there were
03:33
other people already at that point who
03:35
were saying no I'm just studying this as
03:37
a phenomenon and revita
03:39
for example who was in that first book
03:41
said you know I'm not interesting the
03:43
application of this to anything beyond
03:44
Highland New Guinea which is what I'm
03:47
writing about yeah so it was split at
03:50
that point we're biological or genetic
03:54
evolutionary explanations take it so
03:58
this is early to mid 70s yeah
04:02
and we're fine logical explanations
04:04
taken seriously at that point or was a
04:06
pretty much all cultural anthropology
04:09
that was dominant well one or a couple
04:12
of biological approaches were very
04:15
important in stimulating the development
04:17
of the anthropology of war those are the
04:20
books by Robert Ardrey such as
04:22
territorial imperative in African
04:23
Genesis and by Konrad Lorenz on the one
04:26
aggression was his book and both of them
04:29
were saying that human beings had a
04:30
basic inborn tendency to go to war the
04:34
anthropologist found they didn't really
04:35
have an answer to that because they
04:37
hadn't paid much attention to war before
04:39
so that provided a real stimulus to
04:41
study the topic do you remember
04:44
so I guess Wilson's book sociobiology
04:47
came out as I recall in 1979 do you
04:52
remember that having any significant
04:55
impact on on your field at that point
04:59
well it got a lot of attention a lot of
05:04
controversy it was focused less on the
05:06
subject of war however he didn't write a
05:08
whole lot in sociobiology about war as
05:11
about the general idea that human beings
05:15
act out some kind of biologically primed
05:19
program to maximize reproductive success
05:22
and they looked at that in a lot of
05:24
other areas but war was in the central
05:26
as
05:26
member war wasn't a central topic in
05:28
sociobiology itself that book it became
05:31
so later on so Brian I guess the the
05:36
reason I'd called you in 1988 is that
05:41
you were somebody so this is when
05:43
Napoleon Chagnon the great
05:45
anthropologist was publishing a very
05:48
important paper on the yanomamö and I
05:52
say not a mom oh I think is that some
05:54
people say Yanomami we should probably
05:56
agree on one of the other for this
05:58
conversation
05:59
well I generally say Yanomami but I
06:02
you're the action item on that hmm
06:05
you're the expert will go with Yanomami
06:07
so anyway that so Chagnon published a
06:11
paper on this tribe that he had been
06:14
studying for about 20 years or more than
06:17
20 years at that point and in this
06:19
particular paper he was linking
06:23
reproductive sex to killing among
06:27
yanomamö men and well we'll get to that
06:29
in a second but the reason that I had
06:33
called you was because somebody had
06:35
spoken to said that you had this really
06:37
interesting thesis about the yanomamö
06:41
Yanomami in particular and some of these
06:45
tribal societies that have been studied
06:47
in the past in general this was the
06:50
theme of your book war in the tribal
06:52
zone I wonder if you could just describe
06:54
your the main thesis of that book
06:57
well we were building on the work of a
07:00
lot of other people anthropologists who
07:02
studied war had typically looked at war
07:06
as if it was a kind of a cultural
07:08
pattern that was divorced from history
07:11
or from real circumstances war among the
07:13
so and so was this way and a lot of
07:17
other anthropologists who were more
07:19
historically inclined looked at warfare
07:22
patterns as European colonialism came in
07:25
and documented that warfare changed
07:28
radically and quickly with changing
07:31
circumstances so what we tried to do
07:33
Neil White had my co-editor and I had
07:36
more in the tribal zone tried to put
07:38
history and real concrete circumstances
07:41
back into war and what we argued is that
07:44
although certainly there was war among
07:48
indigenous people around the world long
07:50
before European states showed up that
07:53
when European states came on to a local
07:57
scene contrary to the idea that either
08:01
they initially suppressed warfare or
08:03
warfare went on just as it always had
08:05
that warfare really changed it changed
08:08
and how people fought and what they
08:11
fought over and very often not always
08:14
but very often the result was to greatly
08:16
intensify warfare and that
08:19
intensification had often been
08:21
misunderstood to be the situation that
08:24
had always existed and we were trying to
08:26
show you how to put things in into
08:29
living circumstances of the people who
08:31
were experiencing the circumstances in
08:33
making war okay so when I first heard
08:37
about your thesis I guess I
08:41
viewed it as kind of variant of the old
08:45
idea of the noble savage so John Jacques
08:48
Rousseau is the famous French
08:50
philosopher who in the 18th century
08:55
postulated that early humans before
08:58
civilization were peaceful and gentle
09:01
and lived in harmony with each other and
09:04
and with nature and this idea is still
09:09
sort of batted around that the contrast
09:12
would be Hobbes's the view of the
09:15
British philosopher Thomas Hobbes of
09:17
early human life as being a war of all
09:21
against war a war of all against all and
09:25
life was nasty brutish and short and all
09:28
those famous phrases and just tell me I
09:32
think you have been often characterized
09:34
as sort of a modern-day Rousseau Ian
09:37
tell me whether that's fair or unfair
09:41
well I have agree with that
09:44
characterization I agree with the
09:46
Hobbesian half of it I think that and of
09:50
course there's a lot more to it than
09:51
just this but the basic idea when people
09:53
say Hobbesian is if they're arguing that
09:56
human societies always practice war it's
10:00
part of the nature of human existence
10:01
the Rousseau Ian buso did have the idea
10:06
that before European states arrived
10:09
there wasn't any war amongst a people of
10:12
the Brazilian coast people like myself
10:14
do not hold that view we do see in fact
10:19
I've been arguing for years for
10:22
archaeology to to illuminate the fact
10:25
that there was warfare before Europeans
10:28
showed up but what in the way that it's
10:32
sort of true
10:34
is that when I have done archaeological
10:37
surveys of the world I believe if you go
10:39
back in time if you go back thousands of
10:42
years to the earliest archaeological
10:43
record you don't find evidence of
10:46
warfare among those societies but then
10:50
war comes in I think war has been
10:52
endemic in Europe for at least six or
10:57
seven thousand years but not before that
11:00
yeah and I also think that warfare was
11:02
made a lot worse in many places when the
11:05
Europeans showed up so there's a kind of
11:08
a tone there that's consistent with some
11:11
of the things that you said Rousseau
11:13
said but the idea that war didn't exist
11:16
until Europeans showed up or until
11:19
States existed or until there was
11:21
agriculture I don't think that it's
11:23
certainly not my opinion I don't think
11:25
there's really much of an
11:26
anthropological opinion that supports
11:28
that point of view so when when did the
11:32
first really clear-cut evidence of
11:35
warfare appear and and where was it
11:37
wasn't in Europe or was it in the Middle
11:39
East or and what did what did it consist
11:43
of well the first evidence of war is
11:47
it's a difficult kind of question war
11:50
leaves behind traces at least an traces
11:53
and skeletal material leaves behind
11:54
traces and settlement patterns sometimes
11:58
it leaves behind specialized weapons
12:00
sometimes even art although that's
12:01
pretty unusual some of the things that
12:04
could indicate war could also indicate
12:06
individual homicide a narrow point in
12:09
somebody's ribs or a hunting accident
12:11
something like that so some of the
12:14
earliest signs of physical violence
12:17
which are quite old I think there's like
12:20
thirty four thousand years ago I think
12:21
we have somebody who shows signs of
12:23
physical violence by another human it's
12:27
ambiguous as to what that means when you
12:29
start to get signs that indicate warfare
12:32
it's like multiple skeletons with signs
12:35
of trauma or other things that go along
12:37
with it
12:37
and the archaeological record picks up
12:41
in very different times in different
12:43
parts of the world in some places we can
12:45
go back a thousand years if we're lucky
12:47
in some places we can go back fifteen
12:49
thousand years in the Middle East who
12:51
can go back quite far and for me the
12:54
earliest signs
12:55
well there's one case actually there's
12:58
one case it's kind of an outlier it's a
13:00
site called site one one seven in Sudan
13:04
which seems to have signs of warfare
13:06
this earlier than what I'm talking about
13:09
now and those people seem to have been
13:10
going through some kind of an ecological
13:12
crisis but if you're talking about war
13:14
that starts and then doesn't go away and
13:17
continues in an unbroken steam stream
13:20
down to the present I'd say about ten
13:22
thousand years ago about 8,000 BC in
13:26
northern Iraq
13:28
kind of ironic yes and there's about
13:32
three villages that are separated from
13:34
each other by hundreds or even a
13:36
thousand years but in the same area you
13:39
see things like skeletons that have
13:42
projected points associated with them
13:44
people are living in more defendable
13:47
sites the weapons the arrowheads are
13:51
larger some of the arrowheads are broken
13:54
in a way that would be consistent with
13:56
hitting a wall none of which is like a
14:00
big neon sign saying here is war but
14:03
you've got a number of different signs
14:04
in the same area and then as time goes
14:08
on in this same area it's very clear
14:10
that you have war and war spreads from
14:13
there to other areas so is is this
14:17
evidence of war does that usually
14:19
coincide with settlements and
14:23
agriculture and all those things that we
14:25
correlate with the beginnings of
14:27
civilization or these more dramatic
14:32
societies or what sorts of societies are
14:34
they are these
14:36
well nomadic societies are it's a it's a
14:41
obvious complication in that if they're
14:43
not staying in one place is hard to
14:45
recover their information the
14:46
archaeological information but we still
14:48
get some good stuff people who are very
14:51
mobile it's long before civilization if
14:55
you think of civilization as the rise of
14:57
cities and kings and things like that
15:01
what you seem to have is a series of a
15:04
set of preconditions that make war more
15:08
likely to be found in a particular area
15:11
things that come before and these
15:13
include things like a settled or
15:16
sedentary existence people are staying
15:19
in one place all year or most of the
15:22
year it seems to involve the development
15:25
of some kind of social hierarchy we find
15:28
in the burial some people are buried
15:30
with a lot of mourning mminton others
15:32
with none now it seems to involve long
15:34
distance trade can involve an ecological
15:38
crisis there's about six or seven of
15:40
these things and the more of them you
15:42
have together the more likely you're
15:45
going to find signs of war it's hard to
15:48
say that you know this is what causes
15:49
war but it seems to be something that if
15:52
it's in place the set the stage is set
15:55
for war well so I guess maybe now we
15:57
should go to the yanomamö I would think
16:00
that the scientists who think that war
16:03
goes much further back than than some of
16:08
the evidence that you're talking about
16:10
indicates would say that there are some
16:13
of these nomadic tribes or more
16:16
primitive societies hunter-gatherers
16:18
which were engaged in war they just
16:22
didn't leave any fossil evidence but you
16:24
can see some societies very similar to
16:27
that that have
16:28
endure it into the modern era that are
16:31
still engaging in all sorts of work
16:32
there so the evidence is captured in
16:36
some of these these modern societies
16:40
modern tribal societies and that's where
16:43
the yanomamö became so important so
16:46
maybe we should just talk about
16:48
Shannon's work and the debate over over
16:53
that so what did you if I could it sure
16:56
if I could just address what you just
16:57
said yeah yes please yeah yeah there's
17:03
and I want to give a plug here a lot of
17:05
my papers are available on my
17:07
department's website the easiest way to
17:09
get to it as Google are period I got an
17:12
initial are Brian Ferguson and it'll
17:16
take me take you to my department
17:17
website and there's an article there
17:19
that deals with exactly the point that
17:21
you just made which is a survey of the
17:25
archaeological evidence for the earliest
17:28
war and it talks about what I just said
17:31
the preconditions but it also hammers
17:33
home again and again the point that you
17:36
cannot take contemporary meaning in the
17:38
past century or to tribal peoples and
17:42
project them back into the distant past
17:44
even if you think that warfare goes back
17:47
indefinitely in time and you're
17:49
certainly entitled to think that a lot
17:51
of archaeologists do it is also very
17:53
very clear that the level of violence
17:57
gets more and more as the archaeological
18:00
record comes closer to the present until
18:03
you get to a level such as that of the
18:05
Yanomami in some cases so what we see
18:08
among tribal people today that they're
18:10
not living in the past they're living in
18:12
the contemporary world and that's
18:14
exactly where you see the influence of
18:16
European contact
18:18
having its most profound effect so in
18:21
that particular point I say you can't do
18:24
that you can't go from now back to
18:27
thousands of years ago and use that as
18:29
evidence so I just wanted to get that
18:31
and you were going to ask something
18:32
about the Yanomami yeah so I think we
18:36
should just go through that controversy
18:37
because whenever you have a debate over
18:39
the origins of warfare and
18:40
nature-nurture and those sorts of things
18:43
shag Nam's work on the Yanomami is part
18:46
of it so my understanding is that
18:48
Chagnon as a graduate student and i
18:51
think the earlier mid 60's went to live
18:55
among these people who are in the Amazon
19:00
Venezuela and Brazil as I understand it
19:03
and yeah right it's a polygynous society
19:06
there is some small degree of farming
19:11
but it's a lot of hunting and the males
19:15
as described by Chagnon in this book
19:18
that he published in 1968 called the
19:23
fierce people was that the title yeah
19:25
were extraordinarily males were
19:30
extrordinary
19:31
violent so for sort of all purposes
19:35
recreationally violent they would just
19:38
bash each other over the head with clubs
19:41
for fun and these games that men would
19:44
play against each other in villages but
19:47
they also were constantly one village
19:49
would constantly raid another village
19:51
they would typically kill some people
19:53
and and still steal females and drag
19:58
them back to their
20:00
camp so was this really it seemed like a
20:03
very Hobbesian picture that Chagnon was
20:05
creating so when did you first encounter
20:08
Shannon's work was it very important
20:10
when you were a graduate student
20:12
absolutely and shotgun really has to be
20:15
credited with being one of the people
20:17
who helped bring the Anthropology of war
20:19
into existence his book the an imam of
20:21
the fierce people was a tremendous
20:23
stimulus for people to get involved in
20:26
researching this stuff it was very much
20:30
on everybody's mind the first meeting I
20:34
ever had with Marvin Harris who was my
20:37
mentor in this he handed me a copy of a
20:41
paper he had just published which was a
20:42
challenge to Jack nines explanation of
20:47
Yanomami warfare and we got into an
20:51
immediate argument over it because I
20:52
shouldn't go along with Harris's view
20:54
either what was the just English
20:57
distinguish their views Jack nonsan
20:59
Paris's it was it was basically whether
21:02
the fighting was oath over women or
21:06
resources or food is that is that
21:09
correct well sort of chadman at first
21:13
had just a kind of a Hobbesian view on
21:16
things he invoked ops he said that war
21:18
doesn't need an explanation it's just
21:20
something that happens because there's
21:21
no way to stop it in these societies but
21:24
as sociobiology developed he got more
21:29
involved in that that's not where he
21:30
started out but he got more involved in
21:32
it and as he got more involved in it he
21:35
began to emphasize war as a struggle for
21:39
reproductive success passing a lot more
21:41
genes see he had gone to the field when
21:44
he went to the field he was actually
21:46
brought to the field by some
21:47
missionaries and the missionaries
21:49
already had published a paper which said
21:51
Yanomami fight over women they saw a lot
21:54
of this going one and Chagnon saw the
21:57
same thing and that was part of his
22:00
explanation you know why it led to Wars
22:02
because there was no way to stop it
22:04
so one sociobiology became a big deal it
22:08
was very easy to connect this up the
22:10
idea of reproductive striving now Harris
22:13
also said that Yanomami fought over
22:16
women but what he said is you have to
22:18
explain why they fight over women and he
22:21
had a very kind of a complicated
22:23
ecological adaptation model that said
22:27
that in societies like the Yanomami
22:30
there's no you can't pay somebody to be
22:33
a soldier
22:34
so you reward warriors with women you
22:37
know women go to warriors and to do that
22:40
you have to have dominant males and
22:44
subservient females to have that kind of
22:47
a system and so you get a society that
22:52
values men and says women are nothing so
22:56
and it's a very complicated circular
22:57
kind of argument and so what they do is
22:59
when babies are born sometimes if it's a
23:01
female baby they will let that baby die
23:04
so they'll have admit they'll have a son
23:06
and that creates the shortage of
23:09
eligible females by the time they you
23:12
all grow up and so men there's not
23:15
enough women to go around and so men
23:16
fight over women and yes men fight over
23:19
women but ultimately it is this system
23:23
that leads to it and the reason why they
23:25
have this system you know you got this
23:27
big circle here but the reason why that
23:29
circle exists is in his view there isn't
23:33
enough game in the Amazon to supply the
23:36
necessary nutrients for villages that
23:40
grow large or stay in one place and
23:42
warfare was always about it was
23:46
certainly as a basic it was basically
23:48
Malthusian argument right so you get yes
23:51
overpopulation and then a struggle over
23:55
over the resources which really and
23:58
there's there's a there really not
24:00
enough resources to go around so it's
24:01
that kind of basic view right we're not
24:04
which which is which makes more at least
24:06
somewhat rational instead of something
24:09
that just sort of Wells up from our
24:11
biology yeah
24:13
it's rational though not in the sense
24:15
that people know what they're doing and
24:17
this is one of the reasons I disagreed
24:18
with them if the system worked that way
24:20
wouldn't people be aware of that but
24:23
it's rational in an ecological sense it
24:25
solves for those people at that time the
24:28
basic Malthusian problem yeah so let's
24:34
talk about the 1988 paper of Chagnon
24:36
because that had a huge impact I would
24:40
assume on the field I know that I think
24:43
it was a cover article in science
24:46
magazine I thought it was really
24:50
disturbing so Chagnon found or reported
24:54
that there was this correlation between
24:56
the number of wives and offspring that
25:00
yanomamö Yanomami killers had a number
25:05
of people that they killed so it was
25:07
this very Darwinian connection between
25:10
male violence and reproductive success
25:14
the more violent you were the more
25:15
successful you were as a warrior the
25:20
more fit you were
25:22
yeah well no paper was a bombshell it
25:26
was I remember very well when it came
25:28
out there had been all these arguments
25:30
going on and it really looked as if Jack
25:33
Don had clinched his his point of view
25:37
but then you had to look at the data and
25:41
when you looked at the data it didn't
25:44
seem so clear when when you looked at it
25:46
harder it seemed extremely questionable
25:48
and that's what I did I did in response
25:51
to his article that article came out in
25:53
88 and I published a response to it in
25:55
89 and then elaborated on it and 95 and
25:58
there were a number of things that are
26:00
wrong with it I mean one thing I've got
26:02
to say is that what Chad Don found was
26:05
that there was a significant
26:06
reproductive success for these people
26:08
they call they're called you know Chi
26:10
hoon okay as someone who's went through
26:11
a ritual purification ceremony which
26:14
most of the time is associated with
26:17
having participated in a killing but not
26:19
always and that's a whole other problem
26:21
which we just don't have time to do
26:23
everything here so I'll leave it but
26:25
what you've heard what you see again and
26:27
again is that uno Kai's have three times
26:29
as many children as non when all Kai's
26:33
killers have three times as many kids as
26:35
non killers that's not what the data
26:37
show and just looking at the table and
26:40
in the article that's for the entire
26:44
sample meaning all males and the thing
26:48
is 20-year olds are neither neither have
26:50
kids nor are you know Kai's if you break
26:54
it down by age categories you find uno
26:58
Kai's have about one and a half times
27:00
not three times as many children so
27:03
that's one thing but still if you had
27:06
50% more children that would be
27:09
significant right
27:11
and especially you know I mean I just
27:14
want to add one key point yeah the the
27:18
implication of this is that if there is
27:21
a predisposition in some men toward
27:25
being violent or having whatever
27:27
qualities make you a successful killer
27:30
than in this society natural selection
27:35
would favor those people so you and over
27:38
time have males who are more innately
27:43
violent that now so disturbed I know
27:47
that but shagmon never said that himself
27:49
but that was the conclusion that a lot
27:52
of people drew from this work right shag
27:55
on didn't say that in himself but that's
27:56
the way it was interpreted but can I
28:00
just let me just make another point
28:01
before I you know that I know there has
28:04
been this big debate over the shag non
28:06
statistics with this paper but doesn't
28:09
what he said about the Yanomami Yanomami
28:13
males doesn't that correlate sort of
28:16
with our impression of the enormous
28:22
success of at least male warrior leaders
28:26
through history and even prehistory so
28:29
we've all heard that Genghis Khan
28:31
supposedly had literally thousands of
28:35
offspring I mean that we certainly
28:37
wouldn't be surprising if successful
28:39
warriors were more successful at
28:42
reproducing as well would it well I mean
28:45
that's part of the strength of the
28:47
argument because you can give those
28:49
cases and you can say well look see
28:51
that's the way it is when you look at
28:54
tribal societies and try to evaluate
28:56
whether warriors and tribal societies
28:58
which is we have to talk about if we're
29:00
going to talk about human evolution not
29:02
Genghis Khan the evidence is very
29:03
ambiguous leave aside Chagnon for
29:06
there was a study done of Cheyenne
29:09
people Native Americans of the Great
29:12
Plains to look at exactly this point and
29:16
it found among the cheyenne there are
29:18
people who are war leaders and peace
29:20
leaders and in war you want the war
29:22
leaders because they're very aggressive
29:23
and they get the job done but once the
29:27
war ends people turn away from them and
29:30
it was the peace leaders who had the
29:32
more offspring or switched gears i had
29:38
my office a couple of weeks ago one of
29:41
my students who's from kenya himself and
29:43
there was violence recently in kenya and
29:45
he was talking about how shocked he was
29:48
to see this violence come home he had
29:51
studied it for other places he never
29:53
thought it would happen where he lived
29:54
and he said when the violence happened
29:57
and it was involved different ethnic
30:01
peoples and tribal peoples those who
30:04
rush to the front to defend what was
30:07
seen as defend his people against the
30:10
others where young men who were kind of
30:12
town layabouts who no one had a lot of
30:15
respect for previously and they rushed
30:17
off into battle and all of a sudden they
30:20
were heroes then the fighting stopped
30:22
and they came back home and everybody
30:25
said but he was telling me if we got a
30:26
problem now what are we going to do
30:28
about these people because they did
30:29
protect us but look who they are right
30:32
you're not going to see people rush off
30:34
to marry them so the question of whether
30:37
or not warriors have more attraction for
30:42
females or whether they marry more
30:44
females is really an empirical question
30:46
and citing genghis khan is really
30:49
irrelevant you know it makes a nice
30:50
little sound bite but it doesn't tell
30:52
you anything about reality and in the
30:54
case of the Yanomami which i've not
30:56
found this is real this is where the
30:59
test
30:59
really
31:01
shagged not had the data to look at this
31:04
this is what he published you know it
31:05
seemed to confirm it but when you look
31:08
at it and I'm gonna leave that a number
31:09
of the objections you can look at the
31:11
stuff I published or I want to mention
31:14
works by dub Frey who's got some very
31:16
good recent books to talk about this as
31:18
well but the key thing I think is the
31:22
Chagnon statistics the ones that
31:24
supposedly showed when oak I had some
31:27
degree we don't know how much but some
31:29
degree of reproductive advantage over
31:31
naneun oak I only included people who
31:34
were alive at the time that he compiled
31:38
the statistics so little technical
31:42
difficulty there the point is that the
31:44
Yanomami data that he produced
31:46
eliminates the Yanomami men who were
31:49
killed in war and there's evidence from
31:52
Chagnon and evidence that i found in my
31:54
book Yanomami warfare that killing
31:57
somebody increases the chance that
31:59
you're going to be killed yourself and
32:01
there's nothing like being dead to cut
32:04
down on your lifetime reproductive
32:05
success so let me get into the work of
32:15
somebody else who's just been very
32:18
influential in this whole debate
32:19
Lawrence Kealey an anthropologist I
32:24
think or is the archive archaeologist
32:26
archaeologist published a book called
32:29
war before civilization came out in 1996
32:33
and it made the argument that basically
32:38
I think the subtitle was the myth of the
32:41
noble peaceful savage so basically he
32:44
was saying or so is totally wrong
32:47
when we look back before human
32:49
civilization we see extremely pervasive
32:54
and very deadly warfare so there have
32:57
been this view of some anthropologists
33:00
that primitive warfare was very
33:03
ritualistic sort of this game that
33:05
resulted in very few casualties and
33:08
Kelly said that that's not the case and
33:10
he said that the yanomamö were actually
33:13
quite typical in the level of their
33:15
violence that they had mortality rates I
33:18
think about 30% of male population over
33:24
time in war related violence and he said
33:28
that this was fairly typical of these
33:31
pre state societies that the mortality
33:33
rates would range anywhere from 20% as
33:36
high as 50% and so I found this book
33:41
very troubling it seems to be very
33:45
widely cited and again it seems to be
33:49
saying that the Yanomami
33:50
you know forget the the issue of
33:53
reproductive success it just says that
33:55
the level of violence was very very high
33:58
in these societies
34:00
yeah well there's there's a lot to
34:02
comment on in your comment there
34:04
Kiely's book has been very influential
34:07
in it in a good way I want to say it's
34:09
if you want to know about the practice
34:11
of tribal warfare I think it's really
34:13
the best thing to read and it also had
34:16
tremendous stimulus on archaeology so
34:18
archeologists are looking at it in a way
34:20
they didn't before
34:20
really Kili deserves the credit for that
34:23
but a lot of other things they have a
34:25
real disagreement with them number one
34:27
about whether anthropologists have seen
34:30
war as being some kind of ritual without
34:32
real consequences that was true forty
34:34
years ago not since it's almost
34:37
impossible to find any anthropologists
34:40
since the mid 1960s who has made that
34:44
statement an anthropologist just as his
34:46
anthropologist haven't studied war yet
34:49
there's thousands of anthropological
34:52
studies on war and it is almost without
34:55
exception on the same track that war is
34:59
a very serious business the casualty
35:03
rate said he talks about there are many
35:05
societies that have casualty rates of
35:07
that type
35:08
the Yanomami the chadman studied do or
35:11
did but not other Yanomami and one of
35:15
the things that you have to take an
35:17
account when you look at those
35:18
statistics is those are provided by
35:22
anthropologists who are interested in
35:24
war because they saw it going one around
35:26
them basically there was a lot of war in
35:29
those areas it's not rare to find those
35:32
casualty rates but it's not typical
35:34
either those were the ones that were
35:36
given because those guys have look at
35:38
all this war so Kili had that position
35:42
and if the the thing about the
35:44
archaeology Keely's an archaeologist but
35:47
he worked more in that book there's very
35:49
little archaeology in that book which is
35:52
okay you know I I'm a cultural
35:54
anthropologist but I've written about
35:55
archaeology what he did a lot of was
36:00
what I commented on before as he looked
36:02
at tribal people and said recent tribal
36:05
people and said this is the way tribal
36:07
people on
36:08
and what I've done is look at the
36:10
archaeological record and in this paper
36:13
I referred to before I consider exactly
36:15
what kind of archeological data Kili
36:18
relies on you do find a lot of
36:21
archaeological information pertaining to
36:23
war but it gets more common as time goes
36:27
forward when you go back to the earlier
36:29
periods in most parts of the world it's
36:32
not there and it's not because we can't
36:33
find out anything about those people
36:35
that's what everybody says so absence of
36:37
evidence isn't evidence of absence we
36:39
don't see war just because we don't
36:40
recover the materials that would show or
36:42
no that's not it what we do recover
36:45
materials that should show war we've got
36:47
skeletons we've got settlement we just
36:50
don't see signs of war okay how are then
36:52
mmm good so again I I didn't hear you
36:55
then say again well I was gonna say I
36:56
think we should get to the case for the
36:59
hunter-gatherers because well first of
37:02
all so my understanding is that for say
37:07
99% of human evolution since the
37:12
original appearance of Homo whatever's
37:15
Homo erectus let's say humans lived in
37:19
these very small troops and and survived
37:25
through hunter hunting and gathering
37:29
so the societies like that would leave
37:32
very little archaeological evidence they
37:35
obviously were nomadic they might have
37:37
been using wooden Spears in many cases
37:41
not even leaving stone artifacts so then
37:46
you really are almost forced to rely on
37:48
modern hunter-gatherer societies and
37:51
observations of them and my
37:54
understanding is that contrary to some
37:57
of the early reports about the cooling
37:59
Bushmen and Africa who were supposed to
38:03
be so peaceful that was the basis of the
38:06
movie the gods must be crazy
38:07
the hunter-gatherers actually are quite
38:11
violent and have a very high mortality
38:12
rates from violence so there's another
38:16
book that I wanted to mention I think is
38:19
he's an Israeli political scientist and
38:21
Azir got I'm not sure that's the right
38:24
pronunciation he wrote a book called war
38:26
on civilization he's previously written
38:28
papers on how they're hunter-gatherers
38:30
they sort of doing surveys and while the
38:32
literature and arguing for very high
38:35
rates of violence in all hunter-gatherer
38:37
tribes that have been seen in the modern
38:40
era and he says that it's very
38:42
reasonable to infer that levels of
38:45
violence would have also been high among
38:47
our ancestors going back hundreds of
38:50
thousands of years right so I just how
38:54
do you respond to to that argument well
38:57
first if there was war more than 25,000
39:01
years ago if it existed we wouldn't see
39:03
it yeah so you can make that argument we
39:06
don't know the distant past true humans
39:08
have always been capable of war and
39:10
there could be war at any time and human
39:12
prehistory absolutely true but if you
39:15
had a lot of warfare the way Ghat and
39:18
Keeley and others have proposed then you
39:20
would have to explain why it went away
39:22
at the time when the archaeological
39:25
record begins and I don't know any
39:26
theory that can account for that
39:29
if you look at hunters and gatherers
39:31
Doug Fry's book the human potential for
39:35
peace I'm not plugging myself here
39:36
consider is this evidence for
39:38
hunter-gatherer warfare and points out
39:41
that the article that's based on which
39:44
is primarily an article from 1978 by
39:47
Carol embers about myths about hunters
39:50
and gatherers is a very skewed sample
39:52
and in cue it includes horse nomads of
39:56
the Great Plains horse was introduced by
39:58
the Spanish it includes these complex
40:02
hunters and gatherers which are large
40:04
scale villages settled people those do
40:07
have some more absolutely but it's not
40:09
the mobile comb type of hunk River
40:11
gatherer and it's a later development if
40:16
you look at the simpler hunters and
40:20
gatherers around the world today some
40:22
have violence some don't most of the
40:25
societies that don't have warfare are
40:28
relatively or not relatively are very
40:31
simple societies and Raymond Kelly and
40:36
other anthropologist has a book I think
40:39
it's called the origins of war and that
40:41
should be looked at for an alternative
40:44
to this specific question because what
40:46
he shows is that when you've got these
40:48
simplest level societies and you don't
40:51
mix in more complex ones like hunters
40:55
and like the the Great Plains horse
40:57
pastoralists who yeah they're hunters
41:00
and gatherers because they don't have
41:01
agriculture but they don't tell us about
41:03
things thousands of years ago if you
41:05
look at the simplest of people those are
41:07
the ones that don't have war so there's
41:09
been an answer to that already I've got
41:10
an answer to got on my website if you go
41:13
there okay
41:15
so let me let me let me just bring up
41:19
one issue that Steven Pinker and Steven
41:22
LeBlanc who are two Harvard scientists
41:26
Pinker a psychologist and Leblanc
41:29
and archaeologist this is a point that
41:30
they've made they're sort of turning I
41:33
think most people would assume if that
41:36
if we have we find a lot of bloodshed in
41:39
our distant past that means that war is
41:41
really deeply ingrained in our nature
41:43
and there's no hope for us war will
41:46
never be abolished it's just you know
41:50
it's part of the human condition but
41:52
what LeBlanc
41:54
and actually Keeley as well and Pinker
41:57
have pointed out is that there's this
42:01
sort of silver lining to these findings
42:03
about our bloody past because mortality
42:06
rates in the 20th century for example or
42:09
about an order of magnitude less than
42:12
some of the mortality rates that Keeley
42:14
was talking about 25 30 % war related
42:18
deaths over time and the 20th century
42:22
had fewer than 2% of the global
42:24
population died of war related deaths so
42:28
one of the sort of disturbing
42:30
implications of a Rousseau in view of
42:34
warfare is that the only way to get rid
42:35
of war is to get rid of civilization and
42:37
to go back to living in some Stone Age
42:39
existence Pinker points out in a recent
42:43
essay a history of violence that
42:46
civilization isn't the cause of of this
42:49
endemic violence it's helping us to
42:51
overcome violence so accepting the kind
42:55
of Hobbesian view of our distant past
42:57
actually leads to this very optimistic
43:00
picture of the future
43:02
what do you think about it scene I
43:04
haven't seen that article by Pinker nor
43:09
the argument and you know I hope
43:12
civilization does help us overcome this
43:14
you know good if it does it's not new
43:17
Franz Boas made this argument in 1911
43:20
the idea that with the spread of more
43:25
inclusive societies there's going to be
43:29
less room for independent warfare the
43:31
point was made by bronislaw malinowski
43:33
and the 40s it was made by Robert Carr
43:36
Niro in the 70s so if there's a
43:38
venerable tradition to this and I think
43:41
that you can make that kind of argument
43:42
and I hope it's true I mean I hope that
43:45
if you look towards the future you see
43:47
more inclusive kinds of political
43:50
systems that don't allow warfare to wage
43:54
under their auspices but the idea that I
44:00
mean I I think the idea that the neo
44:04
Rousseau we in view or the idea that
44:09
civilization is the cure of warfare
44:15
reach some of the early Mesopotamian
44:18
sects about the warfare that developed
44:22
there you don't find anything I mean
44:24
that it's mind-boggling and you don't
44:28
find anything like that more than eight
44:32
hundred thousand twelve hundred years
44:34
before the development of those
44:36
civilizations I mean that development of
44:39
civilization itself was a bad day for
44:42
Humanity in terms of the amount of
44:44
people who were killed you know since
44:47
we're listen we're already at 40 40 some
44:50
minutes I want to make sure that
44:53
you comment on the primate studies so
44:57
another Harvard scientist has been very
45:00
influential in the war and the debate
45:02
over war is Richard Wrangham who had
45:07
wrote a book called demonic males came
45:10
out in 1996 that presents both his own
45:13
studies of chimpanzees and sort of wraps
45:17
that up with the work of Chagnon and
45:20
others and presents this very sort of
45:26
biological gene oriented picture of
45:30
warfare and violence based on this very
45:34
startling finding that was made in the
45:36
1970s that male chimpanzees sometimes
45:40
band together and go out in these
45:42
raiding parties and stop the crap out of
45:44
chimpanzees from other troops and even
45:47
killed him and so this Wrangham has
45:50
argued shows that the roots of human
45:53
violence go back millions of years
45:57
perhaps five million years to the common
46:00
ancestor of humans and chimpanzees so
46:03
how do you respond to that whole line of
46:05
reasoning like - there's a limit to what
46:09
I can say because I'm working on a book
46:11
on this now chimpanzees in war and it's
46:16
the most difficult thing I've ever done
46:18
I've been working on it for over 10
46:20
years now not without interruptions and
46:23
I still got a ways to go so I'm going to
46:24
just sort of say the general picture and
46:26
whether this general picture holds up
46:29
will depend on what I can produce I've
46:31
been reading the entire literature very
46:33
very carefully and I'll say off the bat
46:38
that I agree that chimpanzees are
46:42
capable of UNS do sometimes practice
46:44
something that merits the label war
46:48
there have been cases where chimpanzees
46:50
have gone off banded together
46:52
and stop the crap out of as you say and
46:55
killed members of other groups what I'm
46:58
saying though is that these are not
47:01
normal conditions as is very often
47:04
portrayed there there are very unusual
47:06
conditions there's only about four or
47:08
five situations in a couple of hundred
47:10
years of chimpanzee observations in
47:13
Africa where this has occurred and I'm
47:15
saying that these are very disturbed
47:17
situations you will also see at the same
47:20
time and this is something that no one
47:22
has paid any attention to the same time
47:24
you have these incidents of male
47:27
chimpanzees killing males and sometimes
47:29
females of other groups there's also all
47:31
kinds of other violence going on for
47:33
example killing infants within their own
47:36
group which is not a good thing for your
47:38
reproductive success or severely
47:41
attacking females of your own group or
47:44
of other groups or killing adult males
47:46
of your own group or killing human
47:48
infants in the area you know it's a
47:50
remarkable coincidence that all these
47:54
other kinds of violence occur at the
47:56
same time when you find these external
47:59
attacks going on so there I yeah why do
48:02
you have those things happening and what
48:04
I'm arguing is that it is you can make a
48:10
very strong case that it is disturbance
48:13
related to human activities in the area
48:15
now so it's important with me this just
48:18
so this buddy
48:18
chimpanzee correlate of your your
48:21
Western contact argument and war in the
48:24
tribal zone it's it's a similar kind of
48:28
argument yes it's it's not new with me
48:32
and anthropologist Margaret power made
48:36
this argument 15 years ago and it's been
48:40
rejected by primatologist but I think
48:42
that she was on the right track and I'm
48:44
trying to show that it's true it's not
48:47
just as market power emphasized the
48:50
disruption of providing bananas and then
48:54
not providing bananas to chimpanzee
48:56
groups but other things like territorial
49:00
compression Mendon a number of human
49:03
impact I call it the human impact
49:04
hypothesis has many different forms and
49:08
that's what I'm trying to show the
49:11
correspondence of human impact with what
49:14
you could call chimpanzee war and other
49:16
forms of chimpanzee violence well then
49:20
of course you also have this this other
49:22
model that many people many New Agers
49:25
have seized on of the bonobos the hippie
49:28
chimps who make love more than they make
49:32
war much less violent I guess it's more
49:34
of a female dominated society so the
49:37
anthropologist or primatologists
49:40
promised a wall has written quite a bit
49:46
about them to try to sort of
49:48
counterbalance some of the the work of
49:52
in theories of Richard Wrangham and the
49:55
people were more focusing on the
49:57
violence of chimpanzees now
49:59
significantly think the bonobos are
50:02
well it's an ironic thing really you
50:05
accurately portrayed what people know
50:08
about this but the wall has said and it
50:12
was a passing comment in response to an
50:14
article he wouldn't be at all surprised
50:16
to see bonobos engaged in killing it
50:18
could happen
50:20
it's Richard Wrangham who is the one who
50:23
has made the point that don't expect
50:26
violence from bonobos because they have
50:28
evolved to have a different nature than
50:31
chimpanzees do this is key for his
50:34
theory chimpanzees have a nature that is
50:37
inclined to war as do humans and bonobos
50:40
show a different nature my view of the
50:43
literature and I do would deal with
50:45
bonobos in this this book I'm doing is
50:47
that bonobos and chimpanzees represent a
50:51
continuous range of behavior in a lot of
50:55
different areas and I think in
50:58
aggression as well I think the bonobos
50:59
are different than the aggression that's
51:02
been reported from for them because they
51:04
have the ones that have been studied
51:05
have had different circumstances
51:08
although there's some chimpanzees that
51:10
act in many ways like bonobos do in
51:12
terms of aggression and inter relations
51:15
between different groups but I wouldn't
51:17
be at all surprised to find a situation
51:20
in which bonobos acted just like
51:22
chimpanzees I think that chimpanzees
51:26
could also act like bonobos yeah I think
51:30
you know you're sort of implicitly
51:32
making the point that we keep getting
51:35
caught up in some kind of essentialism
51:37
when we talk about you know
51:40
humans are particularly human societies
51:42
or chimps versus bonobos and and one
51:45
thing that we keep having to relearn
51:48
when we're talking about human nature or
51:50
even primate nature is that it is very
51:53
malleable and sensitive to cultural
51:56
conditions so I'm sure you've seen this
51:59
work by Robert Sapolsky the Stanford
52:02
biologist on these baboons who were as a
52:07
result of all the alpha males being
52:09
killed by tuberculosis
52:12
there was this radical change in the
52:15
social structure of this baboon troops
52:17
of baboons were thought to be quite
52:19
hardwired for sort of an alpha male
52:22
dominated Society berry violent but in
52:26
this particular troop followed by
52:27
Sapolsky there was this complete
52:30
cultural change that the troop became
52:32
much more peaceful less violence more
52:36
dominated by the females that it had
52:39
been and then this is this is persisted
52:42
through several generations yeah I agree
52:45
with that completely Fran's de Waal did
52:47
an experiment with a similar kind of
52:49
message involving macaques and stumped a
52:53
of novice rhesus and stump Tail macaques
52:56
but I won't go into that but I think
52:57
there's there's that there's other
52:58
evidence I think that violence is
53:01
something that is is learned and I think
53:03
the learning is a result of both the
53:06
social or cultural circumstances in
53:10
which primates grow up what their elders
53:13
are doing and also the immediate
53:15
circumstances that they find themselves
53:17
in what's the real situation of
53:19
competition for scarce resources for
53:22
instance and I think in that I think
53:23
they're like human beings so you know we
53:27
are running out of time I really wanted
53:29
you to talk about this debate going on
53:31
within your profession anthropology and
53:34
in other social sciences and also within
53:36
psychiatry and psychology really is
53:40
it's throughout science but maybe you
53:42
can start by talking about the debate in
53:43
anthropology over whether scientists
53:47
should serve as consultants or advisors
53:50
for the military so I'm not sure when
53:55
this first came to the attention of
53:59
people in your profession but I know
54:00
it's a big debate going on now so where
54:04
do you stand on this and what's going on
54:06
within your profession well it's it's a
54:10
huge issue it's really got the potential
54:12
to transform what anthropology is today
54:14
I don't think most anthropologists
54:16
realize how big this is it's been a big
54:19
thing for psychology still very hot but
54:21
I think it's even bigger for
54:22
anthropology because anthropologists are
54:25
being called on and that the military
54:27
has discovered culture at least what
54:29
they think culture is they woke up to
54:32
the fact that they were losing in places
54:36
like Iraq and Afghanistan and one reason
54:38
is that they didn't understand the
54:39
people they were dealing with so in the
54:42
past since about 2003 it's been
54:44
developing it really kind of exploded
54:46
about two years ago they've been calling
54:48
for anthropological input in different
54:50
ways actually they don't say
54:51
anthropological input they say cultural
54:54
knowledge and they say ethnographic
54:56
intelligence and it's that latter one
54:58
that is the problem here now there's no
55:02
way to begin even if we had the whole
55:04
tape on this to go through all the
55:07
different ways anthropologists can get
55:09
involved it has to do with teaching
55:11
generally I'm in favor of teaching
55:13
people we're going overseas about the
55:16
people you're going to be living among
55:18
it has to do with research that you've
55:21
done in the past that then the military
55:22
picks up and uses its issues of who you
55:26
work for are you working for the State
55:30
Department or you working for Blackwater
55:32
are you working for the Canadian
55:34
military or the German military of the
55:36
US military are you working under this
55:38
politics absolutely as politics are you
55:40
working under a bush administration or
55:42
an Obama administer
55:45
are you working in I mean it goes on and
55:47
on and produces this endless number of
55:51
permutations of how anthropologists can
55:55
be involved and what's very clear is
55:58
that the the the Pentagon and other
56:02
branches of the government and other
56:04
governments are going to spend lots of
56:06
money money like anthropology has never
56:08
seen before to get in anthropologists
56:10
involved in this so it's kind of
56:12
happened you know money talks what I'm
56:16
saying about this is that there's a lot
56:20
of ways that anthropologists can be
56:23
involved in one way or another with
56:24
security agencies a lot of ways that I
56:27
would say very good go do it there's a
56:30
lot of other ways that are kind of
56:32
complicated in grey and you've got to
56:35
think about them but to understand and
56:39
to navigate your way through these grey
56:40
areas you've got to understand it's a
56:42
point where the slippery slope becomes a
56:44
cliff there's things that
56:46
anthropologists can't do they can't do
56:49
things that violate their professional
56:51
ethics so give me this give me an
56:53
example of something that you personally
56:56
would do and something that you
56:59
absolutely wouldn't do and don't think
57:01
anybody else in your profession should
57:03
do
57:04
well I would certainly teach peeping I
57:07
do now teaching me go down to the War
57:12
College and teach officers perhaps we're
57:16
going to be deployed overseas in Iraq or
57:21
Afghanistan or you know some other
57:23
troubled area that's where it begins to
57:26
get a little gray and I think that it
57:29
you know I'd have to look at what the
57:31
offer is and who's getting it and where
57:34
they're going and what they think
57:35
they're gonna do with it but I don't
57:37
have problems with people who do that
57:39
I'm not saying if I want to do it myself
57:40
but I'm not gonna say hey you shouldn't
57:42
do that at all I think that advising you
57:47
know I believe our current predicament
57:50
in Iraq and Afghanistan would be we went
57:57
through the past few years wouldn't have
57:59
happened if they had more kind of
58:02
anthropological input at the beginning I
58:06
don't high levels of people who were
58:07
figuring out should we do this or should
58:10
we do it and what's gonna happen where I
58:12
think you can't do it is when you get
58:15
down to field operations by the military
58:19
when you get down it comes to the point
58:21
of it is the Human Terrain system this
58:24
is the military's developed by the
58:28
military working with anthropologists a
58:30
way to deploy anthropologists into the
58:33
field embed them with combat battalions
58:36
and get anthropological advice on how to
58:40
conduct their operations so this is more
58:43
similar to using psychologists or
58:46
psychiatrists to come up with more
58:49
effective methods of interrogation
58:52
it's yeah there are different issues
58:55
there but they're kind of parallels the
58:57
psychologists are saying the
58:58
psychologists who say we should do that
59:00
we should be involved in interrogations
59:02
they say by being involved we help
59:05
reduce harm we tell the interrogators
59:08
when to stop what they can't do and
59:12
others who say shouldn't do it say well
59:15
you're enabling them you know you're
59:17
saying yeah go up to this point but no
59:19
further and are you really going to stop
59:20
them when they get to that point that's
59:22
for psychology to deal with the
59:24
anthropologists who get involved in this
59:26
say we are reducing the need for
59:28
military to do to drop bombs and shoot
59:31
guns we're showing them how to win
59:33
hearts and minds we help in peaceful
59:37
activities that's a great ideal I
59:39
understand why people are interested in
59:41
that I mean if if I could believe that
59:43
this is really something we could
59:45
isolate and work one I'd say go for it
59:49
but what the American Anthropological
59:51
Association and myself and the American
59:54
ethological Association has committee
59:56
that's been dealing with this say that
59:58
there are real problems with these teams
60:00
of teams there are two ethical
60:03
quandaries one is anthropologists in all
60:09
circumstances are required to disclose
60:12
the people with whom they're dealing who
60:14
they are and what their information is
60:16
going to be used for full disclosure and
60:18
anthropologists are required to do no
60:21
harm not to produce information that can
60:23
be used to harm the people they study
60:25
now leaving aside the American
60:27
Anthropological Association the
60:29
advocates of the Human Terrain system
60:31
say that's it we're not helping harm
60:35
anybody and I think that that's
60:38
disingenuous when you look at the real
60:40
situation they say we don't identify
60:43
enemies we identify friends
60:46
how do you identify friends without at
60:49
the same time clarifying enemies how can
60:51
you do one without the other they say we
60:53
don't engage in combat missions we do
60:56
peaceful work when you read what the
60:59
military says they see peaceful work
61:01
building a road or digging a well as
61:04
part of a unified spectrum that includes
61:07
dropping bombs I'm not criticising the
61:10
military that's their job but
61:12
anthropologist thinking they can
61:13
segregate their work out and and not
61:17
contribute to this full spectrum push
61:20
that the military is asking for is naive
61:24
well and there there are other things
61:27
like that as well I mean I just for time
61:29
I'm stopping myself but basically I
61:32
believe that anthropologists cannot do
61:34
this oh another one they said we're not
61:36
collecting military intelligence well on
61:41
the Human Terrain system in the Human
61:43
Terrain teams one depending on how you
61:46
read of one or two of these five person
61:48
teams must have a background in military
61:52
intelligence so if the anthropologist
61:54
isn't collecting the information there's
61:56
somebody else there who's from military
61:57
intelligence working with them and this
61:59
is a program that's the idea that you're
62:00
not you're not targeting people I think
62:03
is is naive and this is a program that's
62:06
in place right now yes it's in place
62:09
right now
62:10
of the cultural of the the cultural
62:14
advisors have already been killed in the
62:17
field both of them are not
62:19
anthropologist one was from comparative
62:22
religion I believe in one from political
62:23
science it's not just anthropology last
62:27
I knew there was one in Pakistan and
62:29
five no I'm sorry one in Afghanistan I
62:31
can't disclose that Pakistan ethic no I
62:34
meant Afghanistan one in Afghanistan and
62:36
five and
62:38
Arak they want to have one with every
62:41
combat battalion in Middle Eastern
62:44
operations I would also think that this
62:46
would revive the old paranoid feels that
62:49
any American social scientist overseas
62:53
must be working for the CIA or some
62:55
other military organization now with
62:58
good reason and one of the things that's
63:00
scary about this and this is what I mean
63:02
about you know this is not the the the
63:05
people who support this try and paint
63:08
opponents or questioners as being
63:11
politically correct simon-pure
63:13
ivory tower academics I'm not giving any
63:17
kind of a blanket dismissal of this you
63:20
just got to realize where the dangers
63:22
are and one is what calls have been both
63:25
from military people and anthropologists
63:28
involved in the military for where this
63:30
is going to go in the future
63:32
there is one article by a guy named Fred
63:35
Renzi military guy who talks about
63:38
having ethnographic intelligence being
63:41
gathered from every US embassy in the
63:44
world or at least in tribal areas which
63:48
involves identifying local networks
63:51
which involves photographs names of
63:55
individuals so that and and once these
63:58
people to know that the United States is
64:01
watching now you get a program like this
64:04
and I can't imagine why any person
64:07
anywhere in the world would talk to an
64:09
anthropologist again because uninsurance
64:12
saying that I'm not one of them is not
64:14
going to have much resonance Brian I
64:18
know you want to talk about a nice easy
64:22
uncontroversial topic to end this chat
64:25
that you've written about so now I
64:28
figure I'll ask you about
64:30
the debate over genes and IQ and
64:35
Ashkenazi Jews yeah well I'm glad you
64:40
asked me that question and in fact I'm
64:42
going to put them I wrote a long article
64:45
an article came out a couple of years
64:47
ago called natural history of Ashkenazi
64:50
intelligence Ashkenazi are Jews of
64:52
Eastern European ancestry and the
64:55
article says that they're burdened with
64:58
about 18 inherited conditions such as
65:01
tay-sachs disease the questions always
65:03
known why do they have so many of these
65:04
inheriting conditions was was it some
65:07
kind of drift some kind of population
65:09
just sort of a weird population history
65:12
thing or was there positive selection
65:14
for them and the idea in this article is
65:18
that natural history of Ashkenazi
65:21
intelligence is that these conditions
65:25
although they may be harmful or lethal
65:27
in homozygous that means people who get
65:30
one copy of the gene from both parents
65:33
of the allele from both parents so they
65:35
have two copies of this harmful allele
65:37
can cause death but if you only got one
65:40
copy that's one parent it might do
65:43
something very positive and this is
65:46
arguing what it does is stimulate
65:50
development of higher IQ and natural
65:54
history of Ashkenazi intelligence argues
65:56
that during the time period of about 800
65:59
to about 1600 ad Jews in Eastern Europe
66:04
were confined to high cognitive feels
66:06
like money-lending and having a high IQ
66:09
would mean more wealth more wealth meant
66:13
more children and that meant
66:16
reproductive success that would
66:19
overcompensate for the damage done when
66:21
you get when someone dies because they
66:24
get two copies of achievement
66:25
so this has gotten a huge press The
66:28
Times reported it twice and The
66:30
Economist reported it lots of other
66:32
stuff nobody answered it I wrote an
66:36
excessively long article that tries to
66:40
take this whole theory apart since no
66:43
one is that no one has addressed it to
66:44
do that I've got to go through
66:47
population geneticist population
66:49
genetics neurobiology psychology history
66:53
Judaic Studies that's why the article is
66:56
so long I have to look at all the
66:57
different things that are posited in
66:59
this article comes out to be out 70
67:02
pages
67:03
it's unpublishable it was rejected from
67:07
one Journal for a couple of reasons
67:09
but one of the most consistent one is
67:12
that this is way too long so what I'm
67:14
going to do is I'm cleaning up because
67:17
of this interview I'm cleaning it up a
67:19
little bit and I'm going to post it on
67:22
my department's website it should be up
67:24
there in about a week and anyone who's
67:27
interested in this anyone who's heard
67:29
about this argument can take a look
67:32
there and see what an answer to it is
67:34
and I can tell you some of the points of
67:36
the answer if we have time well we're at
67:39
a minute an hour and eight minutes now
67:41
which is sort of pushing the boundaries
67:42
for blogging has baked it can I just say
67:45
that it seems to me that the common
67:48
theme in your career is a skepticism and
67:53
distaste for genetic determinism so this
67:58
correct me if I'm wrong but this this
68:02
thesis about Ashkenazi genes and IQ
68:08
reminds me and I'm certain many other
68:10
people who have paid attention to this
68:12
of the old bell curve argument of
68:16
charles murray and richard Herrnstein
68:18
who were saying that some of the
68:22
this this gap in IQ scores average IQ
68:26
scores between blacks and whites is
68:28
really best explained by innate genetic
68:31
differences than by a cultural and
68:35
environmental differences is one of the
68:39
reasons why you take this Ashkenazi
68:41
paper so seriously that you have in the
68:44
back of your mind the the old debate
68:46
over race and IQ well that's part of it
68:51
but I think what's happening is
68:56
especially in the press treatment that
68:58
came out of the Ashkenazi article is
69:00
that this is going to a whole new level
69:02
much more significant than just issues
69:05
of race in IQ the point that's being
69:08
made made very explicitly by one of the
69:10
authors of natural history a history of
69:13
Ashkenazi intelligence is that cultural
69:15
differences in general not just an IQ
69:18
but in predispositions to act one way or
69:22
another aren't what we have thought in
69:26
anthropology for so many years something
69:27
that are learned cultures rather these
69:29
Express genetic differences the
69:32
differences between different cultural
69:35
groups are inscribed in their genes this
69:39
is a 19th century idea that's coming
69:42
back now and natural history of
69:44
Ashkenazi intelligence has been the the
69:48
case that is used to make that argument
69:50
so yeah you can look back to the bell
69:52
curve but you can also look ahead to
69:54
where it's going and where it's going is
69:56
much much bigger than that and people
69:58
really have to get with it that this is
70:00
happening anthropologists don't like to
70:02
talk about this stuff population
70:05
geneticists and population geneticists I
70:07
talked to when I was writing this said
70:09
this article is so bad that it doesn't
70:10
deserve a published response and I said
70:12
are you gonna write anything about it no
70:14
no one takes it seriously well they do
70:15
and people have to start dealing with
70:19
these not politically not coming up with
70:22
political objections but scientifically
70:25
looking at them carefully evaluating the
70:27
theory looking at the evidence seeing
70:29
whether it holds water or not that's
70:31
what I do in my article called how Jews
70:35
became smart that will be on my website
70:38
appearing on my website soon great just
70:42
make sure that you've got everything
70:43
available there and the blogging head
70:46
audience can check it out for themselves
70:48
and I hope debate it on on the website
70:52
so Brian we are out of time now we're at
70:54
a minute or an hour and 11 minutes and
70:56
that's I think I've got nowhere to go
70:58
record for me so it's been a pleasure I
71:02
really enjoyed it and hope to see you in
71:06
person again one of these days soon okay
71:10
all right thanks John

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