In Defense of Darwin

There are a few contentious ideas that come out of anthropology that can make people uncomfortable. The most well known are the result of a man named Charles Darwin. When we think of anthropology and Darwin, we instantly think evolution and the descendent from apes, and survival of the fittest. In general, what you know about them would be wrong. Here's why:

 1) Our current understanding of evolution has been much more influenced by the newer science of genetics than of Darwin.  In the 1830s, the only inkling of heredity came from simple mendelian genetics that I'm sure most of us have done in high school biology. He set out looking for evidence, for fact not myth. There is a lot of mythology in creation stories from around the world with small kernals of truth buried deep within. He did not set out to disprove the establish religiously based view of creation - in fact he held off on publishing "On the Origin of Species" for a solid twenty years after his expedition on the Beagle while he tried to reconcile his orthodox  views with the evidence he had amassed, which ultimately led to his transition from orthodoxy to agnosticism.

Descendence from apes is a tricky concept for many people because of our ingrained belief that human are elevated about all other life forms. The idea that we are not as different from the animals as we would like to think can be quite unsettling. When you look at the physical evidence (anatomy) it makes sense. As I am no where near as eloquent, here is the last paragraph from "Origin of Species" (of which you can find the entire text online):

Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not through his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; and the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having been aboriginally placed there, may give him hopes for a still higher destiny in the distant future. But we are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with the truth as far as our reason allows us to discover it. I have given the evidence to the best of my ability; and we must acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system—with all these exalted powers—Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.

2) Survival of the fittest is not what we have been led to believe it is. It does not mean that the biggest, strongest, most aggressive survives, but that the one who can adapt the best will outlast all the rest. Our notions about social darwinism, a dog-eat-dog world, all came later and would have been considered deplorable by Darwin. Evolutionary fitness is defined by who has the most offspring survive. This is in direct conflict with social hierarchy stating that those at the top of the pyramid are the "fittest" and therefore deserving of our power and esteem. The octomom is evolutionarily more fit than Bill Gates. Shocking, and yet it makes sense. While not all of her children will survive and thrive to produce multiple children of their own by sheer statistics, her traits - both genetic and cultural - will have a much greater chance of conquering the world than Gates' three kids.

The public's understanding of the time-scale for evolution is all wrong. For those who don't know, evolution happens on a species level over many generations. Adaptation happens at the individual level. You cannot watch evolution happen, unless you are watching fruit flies or some other species with a super short rate of generational turnover.  At the time of Darwin, he posited that natural selection was just one of a variety of mechanisms leading the evolution. With the rise of genetics, it has been shown as the only viable means of evolution.

Change over time to adapt to pressure. That's it, the whole controversial concept. It's a very simple idea, one that to this day still gets people's feathers ruffled. Look no further than the continuing debates in schools about the teaching of evolution versus creationism. Science and religion are not antithetical by nature, they only become that way when people in power on either side feel threatened. In other words, they feel the need to fight for their ideology's survival, which is ideological survival of the fittest. It all comes full circle.

Darwin was a great naturalist of his time, who had made many important observations. For instance, it is because of Darwin that we understand how coral atolls form or how barnacles work. He wrote many books and some of his more interesting and innovative work is found in "The Descent of Man", which talks about sexual selection, and "The Expresssion of the Emotions", which is one of the founding works of psychology and hugely influential on Freud. His work has revolutionized science, indeed it helped lead to the development of scientists - as distinct from the more clerically trained naturalists. He was seen as both heretic and herald. You cannot have a complete understanding of how Homo sapiens are now without understanding the thought process that led us to start looking for clues about the world around us.

Anthropowhat now?

Lately it has come to my attention that unless you are trained in the social sciences you generally feel that they are worthless, especially in the country. The result of this short-sightedness is the collapse of our civilization. You are probably thinking that I'm exaggerating but alas I am not. Let me explain:

People snicker when you say you are going for a BA instead of a BS at university; they assume that you will either try to become a professor at some academic insitution (of which very few jobs actually exist), or will live with your parents until you are in your 30s because you can't get a "real job," and that your entire scholastic endeavour was a monumental waste of time and money. Little do these people know that the social sciences are training people to analyze people, social structures, all things that we take as innate aspects of functioning in a human world.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, the social science trifecta consists of psychology (the study of the individual), sociology (the study of societal systems and structures, eg the education system), and my personal favorite anthropology (the study of people past, present, and future). In the US, only psychology has achieved a mild level of mainstream acceptance, primarily due to the national superiority complex and obsession with the individual. Sociology and anthopology have been largely ignored because of our cultural aversion to the idea that something other than our own agency affects our decision making processes. Some people argue that geography, economics and philosophy are also social sciences, but would argue that they fit under the aforementioned three.

As I was trained in anthropology, I will really only focus on it as that is where my experience lies. Most people really have no idea what an anthropologist does; some poor ignorant fools even think they study dinosaurs... It is the most humanistic of the sciences and the most scientific of the humanities. To get a BA in anth, you receive one of the most interdisciplinary trainings out there - other than someone who triple majors or takes BIS (bachelor's in integerated studies, which is basically two minors with some classes to help you make them coalesce). Economics, agriculture, biology, geology, history, art, physiology and anatomy. Decision making models, natural resource management, political science, medicine, folklore, architecture and design. You name it and it applies to anth because anth studies all things human. Anthropology also instills a sense of scale to time, in that a decision today affects others for generations, as anthropologists study humans in the past and present to gain a perspective on the future.

Fasilidas' Bath, circa 17th century, Ethiopia

What makes people really unconfortable about anthropology is two-fold: Darwin's natural selection, and the implications of the concept of the other. As I've already covered Darwin thoroughly in another post, I will focus on the other, the us vs them that asks the difficult questions about our cultural biases.

The all scary OTHER, also known as orientalism. Briefly, anyone not of your culture is weird and different and wrong and therefore most often considered inferior. This is also known as "the west versus the rest" mentality.  As these others are so clearly different from you and your way of thinking, and since you are generally right because your way of thinking has worked so well for your people for a long time, then the others clearly must be wrong. This is a very dangerous concept for many reasons, not the least of which is the rise of "my way or the highway" autocrats. Part of what makes this concept so difficult for people to understand is that it forces us to acknowledge our own culture, something that Americans seem loathed to do. We pride ourselves on our heritage of immigrants and our tenacity, but the reality is that we give new immigrants a cold shoulder unless they are the best and brightest. This battle between us and them has been going on for centuries. It has driven us to wars, to eugenics, to genocides, to colonialism, but also to knowledge exchange, food exchange, learning and growth. The other affects how people react to conflict in that it forces is to behave in a way that maintains our difference but allows us to change as needed.


Lately it has come to my attention that unless you are trained in the social sciences you generally feel that they are worthless, especially in the country. The result of this short-sightedness is the collapse of our civilization. You are probably thinking that I'm exaggerating but alas I am not. Let me explain:

People snicker when you say you are going for a BA instead of a BS at university; they assume that you will either try to become a professor at some academic insitution (of which very few jobs actually exist), or will live with your parents until you are in your 30s because you can't get a "real job," and that your entire scholastic endeavour was a monumental waste of time and money. Little do these people know that the social sciences are training people to analyze people, social structures, all things that we take as innate aspects of functioning in a human world.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, the social science trifecta consists of psychology (the study of the individual), sociology (the study of societal systems and structures, eg the education system), and my personal favorite anthropology (the study of people past, present, and future). In the US, only psychology has achieved a mild level of mainstream acceptance, primarily due to the national superiority complex and obsession with the individual. Sociology and anthopology have been largely ignored due to our cultural aversion to the idea that something other than our own agency affects our decision making processes.

As I was trained in anthropology, I will really only focus on it as that is where my experience lies. Most people really have no idea what an anthropologist does; some poor ignorant fools even think they study dinosaurs... To get a BA in anth, you receive one of the most interdisciplinary trainings out there - other than someone who takes BIS (bachelor's in integerated studies, which is basically two minors with some classes to help you make them coalesce). Economics, agriculture, biology, geology, history, art, physiology and anatomy. Decision making models, natural resource management, political science, medicine, folklore, architecture and design. You name it and it applies to anth because anth studies all things human.


Now, how does lack of recognition for all of this lead to the collapse of our civilization? By refusing the legitimize the social sciences and how they allow us to analyze ourselves and the people from other cultures that we interact with and how we interact with them, we refuse to admit the plethora of learning oppurtunities that surround us - such as from history, from the other, from prehistory. This leads to tunnelvision, which in turn leads to short sighted decisions. Once you've made too many short sighted decisions it becomes too hard to change or adapt with emerging problems. When you fail to adapt, you fail to survive. Simple.



Broken heiroglyics from a fallen civilization

The solution? Hire more social scientists. Value them, as they hold the mirror up for self/systemic/cultural reflection.

Wascally Wabbit

So, this was supposed to be a blog about philosophical musings of the current happenings in my life. Other than some things that make me really furious about american society and culture (which are two seperate and distinct beasts) there has not been that much preoccupying my mind. Well, except for the mystery of how the rabbit keeps escaping his hutch... I swear that I'm locking it at night and yet he has now twice broken free...

I can only see a few possible scenarios:
1) I'm getting really absent minded and routinely forgetting to lock his hutch.
2) He's getting smarter and has figured out how to undo the latch from within his hutch without the benefits of opposible thumbs.
3) The apartment is haunted, by Harvey - the giant imaginary rabbit, who desires that all other rabbits to be free like him.

As much as I hate to admit it, I think that the most probable answer is #1 - I'm loosing it. Maybe I'm working too much. Do you think that they'd give me time off for rabbit sanity? Probably not, especially with the baby boom that is about to explode this summer. It must be my disease addled brain rebelling. Alas, that too seems an improbable answer.

Maybe he is escaping due to the humiliation that I impose upon him whilst shnuggling...

Looks like this will be a question similar to the tootsie pop dilemma: the world may never know.

And behold, Spring!

Looks like I've been slacking, but in reality March was busy for a variety of reasons. One, the weather was super stormy which turns me into a recluse, holed up inside under a blanket trying to pretend that it is something more than 40 degrees outside. Two, we escaped for a weekend to sunny Arizona - the state that I will return to probably my entire life despite it's high purportion of crazies. And three, my MS flared up resulting in me being very drugged the last week of the month.

Desert Wildflowers with Prickly Pear Cactus

But through the drug induced fog we emerge to April and the glories of Spring! The daffodils braved the cold and rain of March, bringing cheer and levity to the hearts of many in the Seattle area! Trees are flowering in a riot of pink and white blossoms! The Tulip Festival in Mount Vernon is up in full glory for the next month! It is actually warm enough, on occasion, to not wear a winter jacket! The sun has come at last... which in turn means that traffic and parking in my neighborhood of Green Lake for the next six months will be horrid as swarms of people descend on the city park to attempt to shed their winter weight and keep it off. One small grippe about that: if you are coming to the park to exercise, park at the Park and Ride a block farther from the park instead of crowding out the residents! One more block after your three mile loop won't kill you.

Now that Passover and Easter are upon us rabbit decor is everywhere; this is Pico's time to shine. He gets to frollick and click his heels as he runs through the yard eating all of the fresh plants trying to live. But it is all in good fun, for who but the most hard hearted doesn't like the visage of a happy flop-eared bunny playing the in the flower beds. Now is the time to go out and weed the garden (for we don't want a forest of oak trees in our backyard, as much as I love trees) and to contemplate planting some veggies. Nothing is better than home grown carrots, peas, and radishes! It just takes planning to get them in the ground in time, or in our case, into pots.

Hurray for naturally getting my vitamin D!

Will Spring be Sprung already!?

Dear Spring,

I miss you. Please hurry up and return; life needs more color. Thanks!

Ange

It is the last weekend in February and it is threatening to snow. This is unacceptable to those of us who grew up with memories of the rare snow day a year, if you were lucky. The bulbs we planted in the yard last fall are begining to sprout, our blueberry plants are budding, and the multitude of strawberries are leafing anew. And yet it is only the high thirties... I love the Pacific Northwest, but our winters suck. Three to four months of solid gray and drizzle can make the most die-hard Seattlite forelorn.

Luckily, we have things like the Spring Tulip Festival in Mount Vernon every year to welcome the new season with vibrant floral goodness. To be fair, once you have gone once you do not really need to go again, but it is always nice to know that every year there will be field of colorful field of flowers, each one a different hue. We haven't gone in four or five years now, and yet the pictures left a lasting impression. What better way to strick away at the gray of the preceeding months than technicolor flowers. If only our yards would catch up to those fields.

At least it is only about three more weeks until winter is officially over. And it just started to hail...

Perhaps Some School Pride?

In my never ending search for a graduate program that not only interests but excites me, I went back to the website of my alma mater, the School of Human Evolution and Social Change (SHESC) at Arizona State University. Now, ASU is often derided as being a party school, so easy to get into that there is no prestige, but ASU has come a long way under current president Michael Crowe. They have embraced the idea that academic rigor and exclusivity are not bound to each other. The idea that you can have a school where practically anyone can not only be admitted but afford to go and that also academically challenges the students seems to be unique in the landscape of American academia. Now, I'm not the most spirited person in terms of school pride or whatever you want to call it, but in this one area ASU continues to make me proud. It seems that the detractors are those who remember ASU like it used to be and do not realize what it has become. Take, for instance, the School of Human Evolution and Social Change.

Grady Gammage Performance Hall at ASU Tempe

Most universities and colleges have an Anthropology program, but none compares in excitement or in the depth of interdisciplinarian focus about the field than ASU. Most schools try to make it into the stodgy old study of dead cultures and the belittling study of the last remaining tribal cultures. There is such a cultural emphasis on specialization in academia that little effort is placed on studying how interconnected the varying aspects of life are - except from what I've seen of ASU's anthropology program. They seem to be the only ones who understand how vital it is, for not only the interconnected global culture that is developing but also for the microcosm of American culture, to understand how such broad ranging disciplines as economics, health, politics, biology, theology, and the arts all interact and feed off one another. It is enough to make me wish that I was a few years younger and still in the program. The formation of SHESC happen during the end of my junior year, and therefore most of the newer advancements (the global health BA and MA programs, vast expansion of its field schools, new requirements for study abroad and internships, etc) happened just after I left. I am extremely jealous. One of the things I think should be mandatory for graduation from college is a cultural exchange to a non-first-world country as a way of showing students the vast diversity of the world as well as the consequences of their business decisions; it is exciting to see undergraduate programs, like ASU's Global Health BA, independently requiring this. When I was at ASU, the field schools were limited to physical anthropology and archaeology digs in the midwest or in Africa and one ethnographic field school in Mexico - none if which I was interested in.

If I stood a chance of getting in, I would apply. At the time of graduation, I remember asking one of my professors about the ASU graduate school and the answer was to be expected - they do not often admit their own graduates as they want a diversity of educational experiences. From what I've heard, that is pretty standard across public universities. For those of us who have watched the program they graduated from change so drastically that you could argue that I've not really been a part of the program. Alas, the bigger hurdle would be the hubby not wanting to move back to Phoenix. Every time I look at schools, ASU just keeps coming to mind. I went there as an undergraduate on a whim, and now I feel like a tractor beam is pullling me back. I love the Pacific Northwest, and I love the idea of going somewhere new, but these other schools just do not know how to sell their programs like ASU does.

Crossroads are always befuddling

It seems like the new year is upon us and we can not avoid making some life changing decisions this year; they have been put off long enough. The short version is: save money to buy a house versus save money to go to graduate school, both complicated by health care and employment questions. As the old saying goes, as a door closes a window opens, but who really wants to be the one to close that door themselves?

Here's the breakdown of the options:

 (a) Buy a House - As all the newspapers, radio, and television broadcasts are apt to remind you, now is a great time to buy a house if you can afford to as prices are at record lows, interest rates are at record lows, and the selection is still pretty good to get into a good neighborhood. Everything says that now is the time to move, but realistically the soonest that will happen for us is in about 1-2 years since we need to save roughly $500 a month to afford a down payment. It is doable, although it will not be all that easy. It will mean bringing lunch to work daily for a year for both of us, not going out to eat - which we already rarely do, taking the bus/cycling/walking as many places as possible, and not incurring any large bills along the way. We've already begun to build our credit through the socially deplorable credit card system (that is worth a whole other entry about the decrepitude of credit cards) and through paying down my student loans. While setting a decent financial standing for ourselves is a good start, it will still be a stretch to get into the areas that we'd want to buy in, especially considering that we are trying to avoid buying a second car. In order to avoid that additional purchase, we would need to move within the Seattle metropolitan area that is readily connected by transit and light rail to the downtown core. It's better for our health and pocket book to live somewhere that is not car dependent.

(b) Go to Graduate School - This is not necessarily in conflict with buying a house, but that is very dependent on where I can find a program that is a good fit. The public health progam at the University of Washington will definately be applied to, but the main problem there is that the faculty does not focus on what I would like to focus on, meaning that while I could go through the program and graduate and get into the field I long for, my field of expertise would be different than what I'm currently most interested in. Graduate School, like all post-secondary education, is an innately selfish thing to do - it is all about you. The programs that interest me most are on the otherside of the country, as the west only has a handful of accredited programs. This would mean a complete change in our lives that I'm not entirely sure we want to do. I've always said that the Seattle area is one area that if you don't leave when you are young you will never leave, and it feels like we are getting enough roots down here that moving will be more difficult than it would have been a few years ago. It is not impossible, but with all of my doctors here, most of our family here, and the hubby finally beginning to get some work experience, it doesn't feel like a good time to leave. Graduate school is something that I feel I must do, but the timing of it is less certain.

(c) Health Considerations - The past year we have been lucky in that I've been pretty healthy, except when it comes to side effects from the medication I was one. Now that that has been stopped, we get to choose between the other possible options - all with worse side effects, or not going on any and taking the chance of a relapse. Plus there is the whole family planning issue, as none of the approved medications are safe for pregnancy and require washout periods for the medication to leave your system before even starting. In addition, none of the other possible medications are approved by my insurance, meaning that we'd be paying much higher monthly just to received the meds. Health maintenance is expensive once you have a "pre-existing condition;" as a result I need to maintain health coverage through an employer while going to grad school because it will be near impossible for me to afford to self-insure for the two years it would take to get the degree. Most jobs grant insurance benefits at 30 hours a week. Being a full time student while working 30 hours a week sounds really taxing from my current perspective. The hubby is currently self-insured, meaning we also have to pay for his health coverage unless he gets a good full-time job with benefits. It is situations like this that make me long for nationalized health care. The stress of how we can manage to keep ourselves covered is enough to make us not want to pursue our passions.

(d) Career Considerations - As has probably become clear, neither the hubby or I are currently in the fields we would ultimately like to build a career in. We'd like to do something that is both creative and intellectually fulfilling; I'd like to travel more and feel like I'm working for a higher mission than just making profit. I can't pursue my interests without going back to school. He can't pursue his without drastically retooling his skills as the field of journalism has changed dramatically since he graduated from college.  We both can't leave our current situations at once, as we need an income to survive on. I'd have to say that the vast majority of people we know from our graduating classes are either unemployed or under-employed due to the current economic mess.  That does not inspire us to cut all safety nets of our current jobs to pursue a career, and yet we are both frustrated by our situations. 

Basically, one of these issues is going to have to be decided upon in the next few weeks in order to move forward. It just feels like we are stuck in a holding pattern, like our choices are few, which is not really the case. Maybe I'm just overthinking everything again. It makes me anxious to contemplate stepping out of my safe job in my safe community to do something selfish like go to school. I should be lucky that I am even in the position to make such decisions, especially as a woman in a first world country.  If only there was a way to have the path elucidated without such animosity and uncertainty - makes me feel like a wuss sometimes.