How reliable is science? --Anthropology (The limitations of science)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Sunday, April 15, 2012, 03:26 (4384 days ago) @ dhw

In Pinker's book, "The Better Angels of our Nature," he discusses a spat between anthropoligists. In chastizing "anthropologists of peace," a category of anthropologists influenced by Rousseau and the concept of the "noble savage," Pinker writes:-"Margaret Mead, for example, described the Chambri of New Guinea as a sex-reversed culture because the men were adorned with makeup and curls, omitting the fact that they had to earn the right to these supposedly effeminate decorations by killing a member of an enemy tribe. Anthropologists who did not get with the program found themselves barred from the territories in which they had worked, denounced in manifestos by their professional societies, slapped with libel lawsuits, and even accused of genocide."-I'm probably not equipped to have a serious discussion with anyone who is an anthropologist, but I think its key to remember, that anthropology shares much more in common with Psychology than it does with other social sciences. I've often joked, that 5000 years from now, someone will come across a cache of abandoned Compact Discs, and surmise that our economic system comprised of "trading large, plastic silver discs." -Anthropology, sociology, and psychology are all areas that like to call themselves "science," but when so often what they study are the truly "human" and changeable properties--culture, language, and thought patterns...-I have a hard time taking them too seriously. -One learns more about human nature from a study of economics than from a class on psychology.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"