Chagnon Debate Essay -- essays papers

Chagnon DebateIn Patrick Tierneys article The Fierce Anthropologist, he discussed the faults that are, or may be, present in Napoleon Chagnons anthropological enquiry of the Yanamamo, or The Fierce People, as Chagnon has referred to them in his best-selling book on the people. Due to Chagnons unparalleled body of work in name of quantity and, as many argue, quality, Marvin Harris draws heavily on his research to nurse his operate, which is that the origin of war is ecological and reproductive pressure. One should question Harriss theories (and all theories), adjournicularly in the light of the aforementioned article, moreover I do not believe his arguments are, or should be, adversely affected by the tuition presented in this article.The claim that the Yanamamo are an extremely militant people is pervasive in Chagnons work, and Harris uses this as the basis for his arguments. However, Tierney claims that Chagnons musical score of Yanamami war colde seemed greatly exaggerated . (Pg. 54). Another integral part of Chagnons research, which Harris cites, was that the Yamamamo mesh war because of women. John Peters, in Tierneys article, presented a differing opinion stating that, these raids referring to the four raids carried out in half a century by a group that Chagnon said demonstrated the most extreme form of Yanamami treachery. (Pg. 54). had been create not by competition for women, as Chagnon had written, but by the scatter of new diseases, which prompted angry accusations of witchcraft.These, among a slew of other discrepancies, cast an especially doubtful light on Chagnons research, and thus Harriss conclusions. Harris reasons that if Yanamamo warfare is indeed caused by fights over women that this is caused not only by insufficiency of females due to female infanticide which is legitimized through male supremacy which is legitimized through warfare, but also the males failure to bring home meat. In Cannibals and Kings Harris writes, From the ac count of capital of Montana Valero, a Brazilian captured by the Yanomamo, we know that wives make a point of taunting their husbands when the supply of game falters The men themselves, after returning empty-handed, effect touchy about real or imagined insubordination on the part of their wives and younger brothers. At the same time, the failure of the men emboldens wives and unmarried younger males to ... ...logists to verify his data, and that, (pg. 54) he the German ethnologist Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt and another Yanomami researcher at the bring wrote a letter to the American Human behavior and Evolution Society, which claimed that Chagnon had got alpha mortality rate statistics wrong. (Pg. 54) Even if these claims of deceiving information and others of plain false information (In The Fierce People, Chagnon wrote that the Yanomami were one of the best nourished populations thus far described in the anthropological/biomedical literature. Unlike Chagnons robust men, the villag ers I encountered were as Rice had observed in 1924 tiny and scrawny. Pg. 54) ar all true I dont believe the considerable majority of Chagnons research was falsified or misleading nearly 40 years of false, purposefully misleading information would be an absurd, pointless line of work of monumental proportions.Overall, I do not believe Harriss theories are, or should be, damaged significantly even in a worst movement scenario (described by Tierney). His theory could stand alone without the evidence provided by the Yanomamo and in all probability the conclusions drawn from them were, indeed, valid.