Rationally Speaking #26 - Is Anthropology Still a Science?

Rationally Speaking Podcast

New York City Skeptics

Philosophy, Society & Culture, Science

4.6 • 787 Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2011

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In a recent article in the New York Times, Nicholas Wade reported that the American Anthropological Association had decided “to strip the word ‘science’ from a statement of its long-range plan.” Is this just a reflection of the long standing division between physical and cultural anthropology or is there more here? The revised statement says that “the purposes of the association shall be to advance public understanding of humankind in all its aspects,” a wording that opens the possibility for cultural anthropologists to engage in public advocacy on behalf of cultures they are studying. So, what kind of discipline is anthropology, after all? And, more broadly, should scientists cross the line from research into public advocacy?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Rationally speaking is a presentation of New York City skeptics dedicated to promoting critical thinking, skeptical inquiry, and science education.
0:22.6	For more information, please visit us at NYCCEptics.org.
0:31.6	Welcome to Rationally Speaking, the podcast where we explore the borderlands between reason and nonsense.
0:41.1	I'm your host, Massimo Piliuchi.
0:43.0	And with me, as always, is my co-host, Julia Galev.
0:45.7	Julia, what's our topic today?
0:47.6	Well, Massimo, last month, the American Anthropological Association revised their official mission statement.
0:54.0	And in the process, they
0:55.0	decided to get rid of any mention of the word science. So the old wording began, quote,
1:00.8	the purposes of the association shall be to advance anthropology as the science that studies
1:05.2	humankind in all its aspects. And now the new wording begins, the purposes of the association shall be to advance public understanding of humankind in all its aspects.
1:15.2	So this decision has raised eyebrows as well as hackles among many anthropologists and plenty of non-anthropologists as well.
1:23.5	So today on rationally speaking, we are going to discuss the implications of the AAA's decision,
1:28.2	whether anthropology should count as a science and why it matters.
1:31.8	So maybe we should start by putting this decision in the context of the history of the field of anthropology.
1:38.3	There's been, as I have read, kind of a pendulum swinging trajectory of the field in terms of where it locates itself
1:46.2	in the sciences or the humanities or the social sciences. So back in the 1950s, there was the
1:53.4	development of some new technologies like radiocarbon dating that allowed for more rigorous
1:57.3	quantitative scientific approaches to studying human history.
2:02.7	And then in the 60s and 70s, anthropologists started to feel that the field was becoming
2:08.1	dominated by cultural anthropology, which tends to use some of the less scientific methods,
2:14.8	and who I think also were the most influenced by this kind of relativism
	...

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