mike,
truly chilling --
is Chagnon still at UCSB or has he retired? will the UC system have to
cover its ass on this as well?
Paul H. Dillon
----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Cole <mcole@weber.ucsd.edu>
To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2000 4:06 PM
Subject: academic imperialism
>
> The following message was passed to me by a colleague. I thought it would
> be of interest here. Its kinda long, so delete if you get bored.
> mike
> ----
>
> >---------- Forwarded message ----------
>
> >>
> >> To: Louise Lamphere, President, American Anthropological Association
> >> (lamphere who-is-at un>
> >> Don Brenneis, President -elect, American Anthropological Association
> >> (brenneis@cats.ucsc.edu)
> >>
> >> From: Terry Turner, Professor of Anthropology, Cornell
> >> University. Head of
> >> the Special Commission of the American Anthropological Association to
> >> Investigate the Situation of the Brazilian Yanomami, 1990-91
> >> (tst3@cornell.edu
> >>
> >> Leslie Sponsel, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Hawaii,
> >> Manoa. Chair of the AAA Committee for Human Rights 1992-1996
> >> (sponsel@hawaii.edu)
> >>
> >> In re: Scandal about to be caused by publication of book by Patrick
> >> Tierney (Darkness in El Dorado. New York. Norton. Publication date:
> >> October 1, 2000).
> >>
> >> Madam President, Mr. President-elect:
> >>
> >> We write to inform you of an impending scandal that will affect the
> >> American Anthropological profession as a whole in the eyes of the
public,
>
> >> and arouse intense indignation and calls for action among members of
the
> >> Association. In its scale, ramifications, and sheer criminality and
> >> corruption it is unparalleled in the history of Anthropology. The AAA
> will
> >> be called upon by the general media and its own membership to take
> >> collective stands on the issues it raises, as well as appropriate
> >> redressive actions. All of this will obviously involve you as
> >> Presidents of
> >> the Association-so the sooner you know about the story that is about to
> >> break, the better prepared you can be to deal with it. Both of us have
> >> seen
> >> galley copies of a book by Patrick Tierney, an investigative
journalist,
> >> about the actions of anthropologists and associated scientific
> researchers
> >> (notably geneticists and medical experimenters) among the Yanomami of
> >> Venezuela over the past thirty-five years. Because of the sensational
> >> nature of its revelations, the notoriety of the people it exposes, and
> the
> >> prestige of the organs of the academic establishment it implicates, the
> >> book is bound to be widely read both outside and inside the
> >> profession. As
> >> both an indication and a vector of its public impact, we have learned
> that
> >> The New Yorker magazine is planning to publish an extensive excerpt,
> timed
> >> to coincide with the publication of the book (on or about October 1st).
> >>
> >> The focus of the scandal is the long-term project for study of the
> >> Yanomami
> >> of Venezuela organized by James Neel, the human geneticist, in which
> >> Napoleon Chagnon, Timothy Asch, and numerous other anthropologists took
> >> part. The French anthropologist Jacques Lizot, who also works with the
> >> Yanomami but is not part of Neel-Chagnon project, also figures in a
> >> different scandalous capacity.
> >>
> >> One of Tierney's more startling revelations is that the whole Yanomami
> >> project was an outgrowth and continuation of the Atomic Energy
Comissions
>
> >> secret program of experiments on human subjects James Neel, the
> >> originator
> >> and director of the project, was part of the medical and genetic
research
>
> >> team attached to the Atomic Energy Commission since the days of the
> >> Manhattan Project. He was a member of the small group of researchers
> >> responsible for studying the effects of radiation on human subjects. He
> >> personally headed the team that investigated the effects of the
Hiroshima
>
> >> and Nagasaki bombs on survivors,. He was put in charge of the study of
> the
> >> effects of atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and later was
involved
>
> >> in the studies of the effects of the radioactivity from the
experimental
> A
> >> and H bomb blasts in the Marshall Islands on the natives (our
> >> colleague May
> >> Jo Marshall has a lot to say about these studies in the Marshalls and
> >> Neel's role in them). The same group also secretly carried out
> experiments
> >> on human subjects in the USA. These included injecting people with
> >> radioactive plutonium without their knowledge or permission,in some
cases
>
> >> leading to their death or disfigurement ( Neel himself appears not to
> have
> >> given any of these experimental injections). Another member of the
> >> same AEC
> >> group of human geneticists and medical experimenters, a Venezuelan,
> Marcel
> >> Roche, was a close colleague of Neel's and spent some time at his
> >> AEC-funded center for Human Genetics at Ann Arbor. He returned to
> >> Venezuela
> >> after the war and did a study of the Yanomami that involved
administering
>
> >> doses of a radioactive isotope of iodine and analyzing samples of
> >> blood for
> >> genetic data. Roche and his project were apparently the connection
> >> that led
> >> Neel to choose the Yanomami for his big study of the genetics of
> >> "leadership" and differential rates of reproduction among dominant and
> >> sub-dominant males in a genetically "isolated" human population. There
is
>
> >> thus a genealogical connection between the the human experiments
carried
> >> out by the AEC, and Neel's and Chagnon's Yanomami project, which was
from
>
> >> the outset funded by the AEC.
> >>
> >> Tierney presents convincing evidence that Neel and Chagnon, on their
trip
>
> >> to the Yanomami in 1968, greatly exacerbated, and probably started, the
> >> epidemic of measles that killed "hundreds, perhaps thousands"
(Tierney's
> >> language-the exact figure will never be known) of Yanomami. The
epidemic
> >> appears to have been caused, or at least worsened and more widely
spread,
>
> >> by a campaign of vaccination carried out by the research team, which
used
>
> >> a virulent vaccine (Edmonson B) that had been counter-indicated by
> medical
> >> experts for use on isolated populations with no prior exposure to
measles
>
> >> (exactly the Yanomami situation). Even among populations with prior
> >> contact
> >> and consequent partial genetic immunity to measles, the vaccine was
> >> supposed to be used only with supportive injections of gamma globulin.
> >>
> >> It was known to produce effects virtually indistinguishable from the
> >> disease of measles itself. Medical experts, when informed that Neel and
> >> his group used the vaccine in question on the Yanomami, typically
> >> refuse to
> >> believe it at first, then say that it is incredible that they could
have
> >> done it, and are at a loss to explain why they would have chosen such
an
> >> inappropriate and dangerous vaccine. There is no record that Neel
sought
> >> any medical advice before applying the vaccine. He never informed the
> >> appropriate organs of the Venezuelan government that his group was
> >> planning
> >> to carry out a vaccination campaign, as he was legally required to do.
> >> Neither he nor any other member of the expedition, including Chagnon
and
> >> the other anthropologists, has ever explained why that vaccine was
used,
> >> despite the evidence that it actually caused or at a minimum greatly
> >> exacerbated the fatal epidemic.
> >>
> >> Once the measles epidemic took off, closely following the vaccinations
> >> with
> >> Edmonson B, the members of the research team refused to provide any
> >> medical
> >> assistance to the sick and dying Yanomami, on explicit orders from
> >> Neel. He
> >> insisted to his colleagues that they were only there to observe and
> record
> >> the epidemic, and that they must stick strictly to their roles as
> >> scientists, not provide medical help.
> >>
> >> All this is bad enough, but the probable truth that emerges, by
> >> implication, from Tierney's documentation is more chilling. There was,
it
>
> >> turns out, a compelling theoretical motive for Neel to want to observe
an
>
> >> epidemic of measles, or comparable "contact" disease, or at least an
> >> outbreak virtually indistinguishable from the real thing-precisely the
> >> effect that the vaccine he chose was known to cause-and to produce one
> for
> >> this purpose if necessary. This motive emerges from Teirney's
> >> documentation
> >> of Neel's extreme eugenic theories and his documented statements about
> >> what
> >> he was hoping to find among the Yanomami, interpreted against the
> >> background of his long association with the Atomic Energy Commission's
> >> secret experiments on human subjects. Neel believed that "natural"
human
> >> society (as it existed everywhere before the advent of large-scale a
> >> gricultural societies and contemporary states with their vast
> populations)
> >> consisted of small, genetically isolated groups, in which, according
> >> to his
> >> eugenically slanted genetic theories, dominant genes (specifically, a
> gene
> >> he believed existed for "leadership" or "innate ability") would have a
> >> selective advantage, because male carriers of this gene could gain
> >> access
> >> to a disproportionate share of the available females, thus reproducing
> >> their own superior genes more frequently than less "innately able"
males.
>
> >> The result, supposedly, would be the continual upgrading of the human
> >> genetic stock. Modern mass societies, by contrast, consist of vast
> >> genetically entropic "herds" in which, he theorized, recessive genes
> could
> >> not be eliminated by selective competition and superior leadership gene
s
> >> would be swamped by mass genetic mediocrity. The political implication
of
>
> >> this fascistic eugenics is clearly that society should be reorganized
> into
> >> small breeding isolates in which genetically superior males could
emerge
> >> into dominance, eliminating or subordinating the male losers in the
> >> competition for leadership and women, and amassing harems of brood
> >> females.
> >>
> >> A big problem for this program, however, was the tendency, generally
> >> recognized by virtually all qualified population geneticists and
> >> epidemiologists, for small breeding isolates to lack genetic
> >> resistance to
> >> diseases incubated in other groups, and their consequent vulnerability
to
>
> >> contact epidemics. For Neel, this meant that the emergence of
genetically
>
> >> superior males in small breeding isolates would tend to be undercut and
> >> neutralized by epidemic diseases to which they would be genetically
> >> vulnerable, while the supposedly genetically entropic mass societies of
> >> modern democratic states, the antitheses of Neel's ideal
> >> alpha-male-dominated groups, would be better adapted for developing
> >> genetic
> >> immunity to such "contact" diseases. It is known that Neel, virtually
> >> alone
> >> among contemporary geneticists, rejected the genetic (and historical)
> >> evidence for the vulnerability of genetically isolated groups to
diseases
>
> >> introduced through contact from other populations. It is possible that
he
>
> >> thought that genetically superior members of such groups might prove to
> >> have differential levels of immunity and thus higher rates of survival
to
>
> >> imported diseases. In such a case, such exogenous epidemics, despite
the
> >> enormous losses of general population they inflict, might actually be
> >> shown
> >> to increase the relative proportion of genetically superior individuals
> to
> >> the total population, and thus be consistent with Neel's eugenic
program.
>
> >> However this may have been, Tierney's well-documented account, in its
> >> entirety, strongly supports the conclusion that the epidemic was in all
> >> probabilty deliberately caused as an experiment designed to produce
> >> scientific support for Neel's eugenic theory. This remains only an
> >> inference in the present state of our knowledge: there is no "smoking
> gun"
> >> in the form of a written text or recorded speech by Neel. It is
> >> nevertheless the only explanation that makes sense of a number of
> >> otherwise
> >> inexplicable facts, including Neel's known interest in observing an
> >> epidemic in a small isolated group for which detailed records of
genetic
> >> and genealogical relations were available, his otherwise inexplicable
> >> selection of a virulent vaccine known to produce effects virtually
> >> identical with the disease itself, his behavior once the epidemic had
> >> started (insisting on allowing it to run its course unhindered by
medical
>
> >> assistance while meticulously documenting its progress and the
> >> genealogical
> >> relations of those who perished and those who survived) and his own
> >> obdurate silence, until his death in February, as to why he carried
> >> out the
> >> vaccination program in the first place, and above all with the lethally
> >> dangerous vaccine.
> >>
> >> The same conclusion is reinforced by considering the objectives of the
> >> anthropological research carried out by Chagnon under Neel's initial
> >> direction and continued support. Chagnon's work has been consistently
> >> directed toward portraying Yanomami society as exactly the kind of
> >> originary human society envisioned by Neel, with dominant males (the
most
>
> >> frequent killers) having the most wives or sexual partners and
offspring.
>
> >> If this pristine, eugenically optimal society could be shown to survive
a
>
> >> contact epidemic with its structure of dominant male polygynists
> >> essentially intact, regardless of quantitatively serious population
> >> losses,
> >> Neel might plausibly be able to argue that his eugenic social vision
was
> >> vindicated. If the epidemic was indeed produced as an experiment,
either
> >> wholly or in part, the genetic studies on the correlation of blood
group
> >> samples and genealogies carried out by Chagnon and some of his students
> >> thus formed integral parts of this massive, and massively fatal, human
> >> experiment.
> >>
> >> As another reader of Tierney's ms commented, Mr. Tierney's analysis is
a
> >> case study of the dangers in science of the uncontrolled ego, of lack
of
> >> respect for life, and of greed and self-indulgence. It is a further
> >> extraordinary revelation of malicious and perverted work conducted
under
> >> the aegis of the Atomic Energy Commission.
> >>
> >> Tierney's revelations begin, but do not end, with the 1968 epidemic.
> There
> >> are many more episodes and sub-plots, almost equally awful, to his
> >> narrative of the antics of anthropologists among the Yanomami. Enough
has
>
> >> been said by this time, however, for you to see that the Association is
> >> going to have to make some collective response to this book, both to
the
> >> facts it documents and the probable conclusions it implies.There will
be
> a
> >> storm in the media, and another in the general scholarly community,
> >> and no
> >> doubt several within anthropology itself. We must be ready. Tierney
> >> devotes much of the book to a critique of Napoleon Chagnon's work (and
> >> actions). He makes clear Chagnon has faithfully striven, in his
> >> ethnographic and theoretical accounts of the Yanomami, to represent
> >> them as
> >> conforming to Neel's ideas about the Hobbesian savagery of "natural"
> human
> >> societies , and how this constitutes the natural selective context for
> the
> >> rise to social dominance and reproductive advantage of males with the
> gene
> >> for "leadership" or "innate ability" (thus Chagnon's emphasis on
Yanomami
>
> >> "fierceness" and propensity for chronic warfare, and the supposed
> >> statistical tendency for men who kill more enemies to have more female
> >> sexual/reproductive partners). He documents how all these aspects of
> >> Chagnon's account of the Yanomami are based on false, non-existent or
> >> misinterpreted data. In other words, Chagnon's main claims about
Yanomami
>
> >> society, the ones that have been so much heralded by sociobiologists
and
> >> other partisans of his work, namely that men who kill more reproduce
more
>
> >> and have more female partners, and that such men become the dominant
> >> leaders of their communities, are simply not true. Thirdly and most
> >> troublingly, he reports that Chagnon has not stopped with cooking and
> >> re-cooking his data on conflict but has actually attempted to
manufacture
>
> >> the phenomenon itself, actually fomenting conflicts between Yanomami
> >> communities, not once but repeatedly.
> >>
> >> In his film work with Asch, for example, Chagnon induced Yanomami to
> enact
> >> fights and aggressive behavior for Asch's camera, sometimes building
> whole
> >> artificial villages as "sets" for the purpose, which were presented as
> >> spontaneous slices of Yanomami life unaffected by the presence of the
> >> anthropologists. Some of these unavowedly artificial scenarios,
however,
> >> actually turned into real conflicts, partly as a result of Chagnon's
> >> policy of giving vast amounts of presents to the villages that agreed
to
> >> put on the docu-drama, which distorted their relations with their
> >> neighbors
> >> in ways that encouraged outbreaks of raiding. In sum, most of the
> Yanomami
> >> conflicts that Chagnon documents, that are the basis of his
> interpretation
> >> of Yanomami society as a neo-Hobbesian system of endemic warfare, were
> >> caused directly or indirectly by himself: a fact he invariably neglects
> to
> >> report. This is not just a matter of bad ethnography or unreflexive
> >> theorizing: Yanomami were maimed and killed in these conflicts, and
whole
>
> >> communities were disrupted to the point of fission and flight.(Brian
> >> Ferguson has also documented some of this story, but Tierney adds much
> new
> >> evidence). As a general point, it is clear that Chagnon's whole
Yanomami
> >> oeuvre is more radically continuous with Neel's eugenic theories, and
his
>
> >> unethical approach to experimentation on human subjects, than appears
> >> simply from a reading of Chagnon's works by themselves.
> >>
> >> Chagnon is not the only anthropologist mentioned in Tierney's
narrative.
> >> Some of his students, like Hames and Good, are also dealt with (not so
> >> unfavorably). The F French anthropologist, Jaques Lizot, also gets a
> >> chapter. He has had nothing to do with Neel or Chagnon (in fact has
been
> a
> >> trenchant and cogent critic of their work), but he has an Achilles heel
> of
> >> his own in the form of a harem of Yanomami boys that he keeps, and
> showers
> >> with presents in exchange for sexual favors (he has also been known to
> >> resort to young girls when boys were unavailable). On the sexual front,
> >> there are also passing references to Chagnon himself demanding that
> >> villagers bring him girls for sex.
> >>
> >> There is still more, in the form of collusion by Neel and Chagnon with
> >> sinister Venezuelan politicians attempting to gain control of Yanomami
> >> lands for illegal gold mining concessions, with the anthropologists
> >> providing "cover" for the illegal mine developer as a "naturalist"
> >> collaborating with the anthropological researchers, in exchange for the
> >> politician's guaranteeing continuing access to the Indians for the
> >> anthropologists.
> >>
> >> This nightmarish story -a real anthropological heart of darkness beyond
> >> the imagining of even a Josef Conrad (though not, perhaps, a Josef
> >> Mengele)--will be seen (rightly in our view) by the public, as well as
> >> most
> >> anthropologists, as putting the whole discipline on trial. As another
> >> reader of the galleys put it, This book should shake anthropology to
its
> >> very foundations. It should cause the field to understand how the
corrupt
>
> >> and depraved protagonists could have spread their poison for so
> >> long while they were accorded great respect throughout the Western
World
> >> and generations of undergraduates received their lies as the
introductory
>
> >> substance of anthropology. This should never be allowed to happen
again.
> >>
> >> We venture to predict that this reaction is fairly representative of
the
> >> response that will follow the publication of Tierney's book and the New
> >> Yorker excerpt. Coming as they will less than two months before the San
> >> Francisco meetings, these publication events virtually guarantee that
the
>
> >> Yanomami scandal will be at its height at the Meetings. This should
> >> give an
> >> optimal opportunity for the Association to mobilize the membership and
> the
> >> institutional structure to deal with it. The writers, both emeritus
> >> members of the Committee for Human Rights, have arranged with Barbara
> >> Johnston, the present chair of the CfHR, that the open Forum put on by
> the
> >> Committee this year be devoted to the Yanomami case. This seemed the
best
>
> >> way to provide a venue for a public airing of the scandal, given that
the
>
> >> program is of course already closed. With Johnston's consent, we have
> >> invited Patrick Tierney to come to the Meetings and be present at the
> >> Forum. He has accepted. He has also agreed to have a copy of the book
ms
> >> sent to Johnston, for the use of the CfHR. We have also
> >> tentatively agreed
> >> with Barbara that the CfHR should draft a press release, which the
> >> President (either or both of you) could (if you and the Executive Board
> >> approve) circulate to the media. There are obviously human rights
aspects
>
> >> of this case that make the CfHR appropriate, but the Ethics Committee,
> the
> >> Society for Latin American Anthropology, and the Association for Latina
> >> and Latino Anthropology should also be notified and involved,
> >> separately or
> >> jointly. These obviously do not exhaust the possibilities--- a lot of
> >> thought and planning remains to be done. Our point is simply that the
> time
> >> to start is now.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Rosemary Gianno, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Sociology/Anthropology
> >> Rhodes
> >> Hall Keene State College Keene NH 03435-3400 USA
> >>
> >> rgianno@keene.edu Phone: (603) 358-2510 Fax: (603) 358-2184
> >>
> >>
> >> George Aaron Broadwell, g.broadwell@albany.edu
> >> Anthropology; Linguistics and Cognitive Science,
> >> University at Albany, SUNY, Albany, NY 12222 | 518-442-4711
> >> Web page: <http://www.albany.edu/anthro/fac/broadwell.htm>
> http://www.albany.edu/anthro/fac/broadwell.htm
> >> -
> >>
>
>>**************************************************************************
>
> >>
> >> JAY RUBY
> >>911 Pleasant Street, No. 3W, Oak Park, IL 60302
> >>voice - 708-445-8964 fax - 204-209-7764
> >>
>
>>**************************************************************************
>
> >>My Web page is <http://www.temple.edu/anthro/ruby/jayruby.html>
> http://www.temple.edu/anthro/ruby/jayruby.html
> >>
> >>Link to my new book, Picturing Culture -
> >> <http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/13964.ctl>
> http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/13964.ctl
> >>
> >>Link to a description of my ethnographic study of Oak Park, IL -
> >> <http://astro.ocis.temple.edu/~ruby/opp>
> http://astro.ocis.temple.edu/~ruby/opp
> >>
>
>>**************************************************************************
>
> >>"I think when you are really stuck, when you have stood still in the
same
> >>spot for too long, you throw a grenade in exactly the spot you were
> >>standing in, and jump, and pray." Renata Adler in Speed Boat.
> >>
> >************************************************************
> >Jon Wagner
> >Division of Education, UC Davis
> >
> >Office: 2397 Academic Surge, UC Davis
> >E-mail: jcwagner@ucdavis.edu
> >PH1: 530-752-5387
> >PH2: 510-559-8006
> >FAX: 530-752-5411
> >Mail: Division of Education, UC Davis, 1 Shields Ave., Davis, CA 95616
> >
> >************************************************************
> >
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Oct 01 2000 - 01:00:55 PDT