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The Political Economy of IQ, Or Tilting At Windmills with Steve Hsu (and Jason Richwine)

John’s Final Epistle to The Anthropologists, Part II: The Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) at the Climax of the Neolithic

The New Intelligent Design of Human Society and Anthropology Nobody in the USA or in the UN has proposed a bill – that I am aware of – for The People to vote on the fundamental topics of our era. We need to discuss such notions as whether we want to be competitive troops in a global, [...]

John’s Final Epistle to The Anthropologists, Part I: The Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) at the Climax of the Neolithic

Peeping through a Keyhole, Down upon My Knees We are virtually here to discuss with you something that I would call InTRADOCtrination: Intelligent Design for Retraining the Masses The Mission?: We suggest that it is The Locking-In: The Prison-Industrial Complex, well-documented and contextualized by Angela Davis. Show More Summary

It's not because research is cheaper there

Robert Plomin on the genetics of various mental traits (source) A Chinese research team is looking for genes that explain why IQ is higher in some people and lower in others: Studies show that at least half of the variation in intelligence quotient, or IQ, is inherited. Show More Summary

Thoughtful, Respectful, and Progressive: Regarding the “Responsibility to Protect”

Some of this has already been raised, in my recent interview with Phil Taylor, plus in an excellent article by Ken Stone, “UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay: ‘Pretext-maker’ for Western Military Aggression,” and by The Wrong Kind of Green (“Must Watch: MP Laurent Louis Exposes International Neo-Colonialists Behind ‘War On Terror’ & ‘Humanitarian Interventions’ [...]

Ethnography and Russian Israelis in Tel Aviv: Getting Reluctant People to Speak

Interview: An Anthropologist on Tiger Woods

I had the pleasure of pitching a few questions to Orin Starn, Chair and Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University, about “popular anthropology,” golf, Ishi’s brain, and the right PC sports to play if you’re an anthropologist (its not golf!). AF: I really liked your book The Passion of Tiger Woods: An Anthropologist Reports [...]

The State of Palestine: A Media Patch

The pre-requisite for this essay is Occupation 101. My purposes include providing that information on Palestine and Israel that is marginalized in the US media. This article is a media patch over the absence or distortion of facts due to the effectiveness of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in systematically controlling media presentations [...]

Happy Monkey Day 2012!

Happy Monkey Day! Finally, the yearlong wait is over and once again, here are your top 10 Monkey and Primate News highlights from 2012 to help you celebrate Monkey Day! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 10. Show More Summary

Fly-on-the-wall or Troll?

Thanks for letting me guest blog on Savage Minds this month! I’ll wrap up with some meta analysis about being an activist/anthropologist/blogger type. I’m not a regular commenter on any websites, but sometimes I read long comment threads on controversial posts, spending enough time that I go into a kind of trance until something snaps [...]

Obama: White America's bogeyman?

Total fertility by race, 1980-2010 ( source ). Is the end of White America being hastened by the Obama presidency? Or is it actually being postponed? Both the right and the left are trumpeting the Obama presidency as marking the end of White America. Show More Summary

Militanthro: Anthropology and the Study of NATO and the U.S. Military

Two articles to which I want to draw attention discuss the important issues of research methodology for anthropologists studying NATO and the U.S. military. For those who do not have paid access to these publications, I will summarize some of the key points. Secondly, I will make some additional comments for those interested in pursuing [...]

Open Access, Explained

One of the take-aways from a recent analysis of the AAA publishing program and its future [in typical style, the report is only available to AAA members] is that few Anthropologists understand Open Access. Savage Minds is here to help. This video, animated by Jorge Cham of PHD Comics is mostly focused on scientific publishing, [...]

“Operation Caesar”: A Current Military Occupation of a Part of the French Countryside

Guest Post by Newt Since the 1960?s, some french politicians had a project for a new airport in the beautiful and ecologically rich bocage countryside near Nantes, more precisely at Notre Dame des Landes. This is now officially to replace the current airport situated in the outskirts of Nantes (this “old airport” runs very well, [...]

LIBYA: Race, Empire, and the Invention of Humanitarian Emergency

Based on my latest book, Slouching Towards Sirte: NATO’s War On Libya and Africa (Baraka Books, Montreal, 2012), and nearly two years of extensive documentary research, this film places the 2011 US/NATO war in Libya in a more meaningful context than that of a war to “protect civilians” driven by the urgent need to “save [...]

An Education into Anthropology via the Interwebs

friendship (2): friendships precarious or false

friendship in tamen’s sense also might suggest why “culture” is often what my taiwanese friends call a “twilight object,” something constantly in diminishment: associations of friends tend to situate their objects this way. think of the friends of the environment near you. as for culture and its various subsets and stand-ins, these nearly always appear [...]

LOL Anthropology

Recently I’ve been rethinking my attitude towards popular trends in anthropological theory. You know what I’m talking about… that sudden realization that a whole bunch of anthropologists seem to be engaged with a theoretical framework, scholar, or empirical subject matter that seems to have come out of the blue while you weren’t paying attention. Lacan, [...]

Herding Humans, Global Economies and the Elimination of Alternatives

Well, let me see, where to start? Syntactic ambiguity everywhere. I mean, “herding humans” can either be the humans who have a traditional practice of herding (the animals); or the humans who are being herded by The Animals who own them. Adjective or Verb: it is really up to YOU. I am having enough trouble [...]

Encircling Empire: Report #17—Consequences

Encircling Empire: Report #17—Consequences Encircling Empire Reports is a selection of essays, blog posts, and news reports covering a given time period, providing links and representative extracts or key passages from each resource, usually focusing on certain countries/continents and/or processes in each report. Show More Summary