Afarensis is a 3.5-2.8 million year old hominin from the Kada Hadar member of the Hadar formation in the Middle Awash, Ethiopia. He is approximately 41 inches tall, weighs approximately 60 pounds and has a cranial capacity of a whopping 410 cc (approximately). Afarensis is currently considered to be transitional between apes and humans and displays some traits of both. Since he spends a lot of time on the couch watching monster movies, some observers question whether he is an obligate biped (although no one has observed him climbing a tree). He also has a blog called 
Profs balk at grants to fight terrorists:
WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is calling on "eggheads" to help the military unravel questions about the recruitment of terrorists, the resurgence of the Taliban and messages delivered in militant Muslim religious schools.Many eggheads are wary. The Pentagon's $50 million Minerva Research Initiative, named after the Roman goddess of wisdom and warriors, will fund social science research deemed crucial to national security. Initial proposals were due July 25, and the first grants are expected to be awarded by year's end.
But the Network of Concerned Anthropologists, which includes professors from American and George Mason universities, said dependence on Pentagon funding could make universities an "instrument rather than a critic of war-making.
This is how an interesting article starts. I recommend it to all who are interested in the future of anthropology. There are a couple of interesting points in the article. This ine is particularly interesting:
The Pentagon also wants insights into Saddam Hussein's rule and into terrorist groups. Citing the development of game theory and Kremlinology in the Cold War, the Pentagon is asking the brightest minds to come up with new ways of thinking about national security. Universities around the world are eligible for Minerva funding. Officials said $50 million will be awarded over five years.
I don't know how insights into Sadam's rule, as opposed to any other dictator is really helpful and seems to be, more than anything, a continuing reflection of the Bush administrations obsession with painting Sadam as the ultimate evil. The search for an adequate rationale for the Iraq war is now being sought in anthropology.
More importantly, there is this:
Forte, who has been doing research in the Caribbean region, said debate over Minerva has made some of his subjects suspicious of his motives. They want to know who is really backing him "because they are concerned I might be some kind of intelligence agent. We're all going to be seen as potentially serving the state, as being the eyes and ears of American foreign policy."
Do we really want anthropology to return to the days when it was nothing but a handmaid for imperialism? Do we want the role of anthropology to be one of finding easy ways of pacifying colonies?
To quote Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park:
Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
Anthropologists could step in and do some good in Iraq and Afghanistan - and other places around the world such as Iran or China - but should we. Would attempting to ameliorate the consequences of bad policies be that beneficial? Or would it simply allow the creators of those policies to continue in their insanity?
Humanities & Social Science
Comments
Surely if you're looking for insights into Saddam's rule, the first place to start would be in the Pentagon, CIA and State Department files relating to the US support of it?
Posted by: Dunc | August 6, 2008 10:48 AM
This is, indeed, a dilemma, but I am not completely comfortable with avoiding the situation entirely, as you suggest. I recall a similar situation when I was in nursing, years ago. Unable to find a good position in a decent hospital, right out of nursing school, I took a spot in a nursing home. I was expected to falsify charts, writing that I had given treatments and medications when I had not done so due to insufficient time and too great a patient load (usually because of us being short-handed). When I told the head RN that I did not want to do that, she pointed out that I either did it or I lost my job. She sympathized with my not wanting to commit this crime (and it is indeed a crime), but said, "If those of us with a conscience don't do it, and try to do a good job in spite of that, then we'll be fired and they'll just hire people who don't give a damn in our place. In the end it's the patients who will suffer the most." In the end, I lost my job and so did she. The patients did, indeed, suffer. Are we really going to let the people in those countries suffer so that our consciences will be clear? I'm not sure my conscience is really up to it -- again.
Posted by: DianaGainer | August 6, 2008 11:10 AM
The issue isn't whether anthropologists should or shouldn't do work for the military or State Dept. Rather it is whether academics in research and teaching positions at Universities should do so. The answer to the second question to me is a resounding no - for the reasons given in the article. But I have no problem with someone taking a full time job working for the State Department, for example.
This is an issue that has been faced in Biology, Chemistry and Physics for a long time. Physics and to some extent Chemistry it isn't so bad because the subjects are highly constrained, still Oppenheimer, Teller et al still resonate. In organic chemistry and biology conflicts of interest are abundant. Grant from chemical company? Work for defense contractor? GM crop study? Hey these all must be dealt with. Welcome Anthropologists to the shades of grey world!
Posted by: Markk | August 6, 2008 11:31 AM
Anthropologists have been dealing with this sort of thing for quite a long time. In more clearcut times like WWII many worked with the government, but later on one could always find spooks noodling around the edges of anthropologists in the field in certain areas at least (Indonesia in the 50s through 70s for instance).
Posted by: QrazyQat | August 6, 2008 1:40 PM
If "eggheads" was Gates' word (and why would anyone doubt that?), asking for help in understanding "towelheads" (an inside word but you know he's thinking it), then the "welcome to the real world of grey" message might best be sent to the Bush Administration, not to Anthropologists. Bah. It would do no good as they're pretty much all living in the super-hero Comic Book world of black and white, with tarted-up covers.
Posted by: Matt Hussein Platte | August 6, 2008 2:19 PM
Anthropology has gone through a relatively recent post-modern revival, part of which was coming to terms with the way the discipline was used as a tool for exploitation and (neo-)colonialism.
So, you might say that as a group they are a little wary of initiatives like this.
Posted by: clvrmnky | August 6, 2008 7:02 PM
I am certainly wary of government, in particular of Republican-led government, and most especially of the military part of it. Any anthropologist who works with them should go into it with his or her eyes wide open and never turn his or her back. At the same time, if people of good conscience avoid such work, those who do not care at all will take on this work and do as much damage as they can, which is considerable. Those of us who stood back, allowing that to happen so as to keep our fingers and consciences clear will be guilty by omission -- that is my point. You may disagree with me, but I'm not sure you got what I was driving at.
Posted by: DianaGainer | August 6, 2008 8:04 PM
Cultural anthropology has more to do with astrology than it does astronomy. It's a humanity with a Stockholm Syndrome relationship with post modernism. It ranks alongside all the other academic disciplines who have no functional understanding of the ways Einstein's General and Special Theories of Relativity do impact the Human world.
Writer Bob Heinlein once said, "Get to know your enemy. At the best you may become friends. At the worst it makes it easier to kill him." Those speaking out against cultural anthropologists becoming involved in this project are acting under the assumption that the U.S. military means to use the information gained to kill people exclusively. That's not how it's worked.
The Sunnis turned to us against al Qaeda because we took the time to learn about them. The Shites turned to us against the militias because we took the time to learn about them. You take an honest look (and I do mean honest) and Iraqi-American relationships you will find the Iraqi people would rather trust us than any other group. Even other Iraqis.
You have a theft, you go to the Americans. There is a murder, you go to the Americans. You have a property dispute with your neighbor, you go to the Americans. They want us gone, that is true, but they know we keep our word and that we treat all fairly and even-handedly. That is the word from the Iraqis, who are not fools by any measure. They know we will leave when we see that they are ready for us to leave. They know this and that is why they have made peace with us and have become our allies.
How did we do this? By learning about them. Learning about their ways and mores. Learning about how they see the world and their place in it. We learned how to deal with them on their terms, and how to trust them. By doing this we have taught them that they can trust us.
I grew up during Vietnam, I have seen war. Iraq isn't even a minor disturbance. East LA sees more violence in one day that Iraq does in a week. Because we learned about the Iraqis, we keep learning about the Iraqis, and we apply that learning. We err. We royally fuck up on occasion. But we keep learning and correcting our mistakes. That is why we've won and we're now in the long, painful process of tidying up.
Yes, I know about the reports. I know about the stories of crime, corruption, and venality. I have also seen the same people you rely upon for news about Iraq and her problems produce stories about subjects you have first hand knowledge of that are down right shit. Journalism is not about keeping you informed, journalism is about selling ad space. It takes lies and misrepresentation to get the eyes and ears advertisers demand, than lies and misrepresentation are what they'll use. To quote William Randolph Hearst, "You provide the copy, I'll provide the war."
To make this blunt, American journalism has used you. Used you like a crack whore at a biker rally. Pederasts use their boys more gently than reporters have used you. And you keep bending over and asking for more because it means you can show your hate for the Satan of Texas.
But things are changing now. Iraq is changing. America is changing. How we view and respond to the fourth estate is changing. Journalism is is shitting in their own neighborhood, and we're not going to forgive them for it. You will live to see the day when your grandchildren will ask, "How could you be so stupid?"
Come writers and critics who prophesyze with your pen
And keep your eyes wide, the chance won't come again,
And don't speak too soon, for the wheel still it spins,
And there's no telling who that it's namin'
For the loser now will be later to win,
For the times they are a changin'
---Bob Dylan.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | August 6, 2008 9:46 PM
No, they turned against al Qaeda because we bought them off with money and weapons. Your contention that:
is incorrect as well. I am against it because whatever temporary ameliorative affects may accrue from it will be far outweighed by the cost of enabling the neocon agenda.
This analogy has been debunked on numerous occasions.
As for the rest, the republican party controls the media, and has been controlling America since Nixon and during that time America has gone to hell in a handbasket. It's time we stopped blindly following conservative principles, they don't work, and try something that does work.
Posted by: afarensis, FCD | August 6, 2008 10:32 PM
AK says: Cultural anthropology has more to do with astrology than it does astronomy. and then goes on from that delusional and ignorant statement to make many more delusional and ignorant statements on a variety of subjects so vast and wrong it suggests he's a sort of Renaissance man of the delusional and ignorant set.
Posted by: QrazyQat | August 7, 2008 4:01 PM
Normally Alan is pretty reasonable [except when talking about bigfoot :)] so I'm hoping he was just having a bad day...
Posted by: afarensis, FCD | August 7, 2008 5:17 PM
Great article, very informative. Thanks and greetings!
Posted by: World | August 8, 2008 12:24 AM
@Alan Kellog: then you, as a relatively rich European or North American, have much to thank for the careful application of astrology, then. You might want to check early US history to see how early anthropology aided and abetted the systemic colonialization of existing civilizations.
We have to live with that legacy today, no matter what else we may feel about it.
Pretending a discipline is marginal, and then failing to provide why you think so is weak. Furthermore, your oversimplification of war and violence into a reified scale you just make up as you go along betrays how much of your comment was simple disk-waving bluster. The only outstanding question is what the hell you were trying to say in the first place.
Your comparison of a real war zone to places like East L.A. would be laughable if it wasn't clear that so many people also have this mistaken notion. This is just another form of the "others suffer; therefore other suffering is not as significant" fallacy.
Systemic violence comes in many forms, but comparing a real war zone with a neighbourhood wracked by crime is disingenuous (at best). I'll go so far as to suggest that /unless/ one has been on the invasion side of a war action, assuming that directly experienced or observed systemic poverty and racial violence comes anywhere near the same level of disaster as war is something none of us will ever be able to determine first-hand. Certainly not without sounding like asses.
Is systemic violence like poverty and racism bad? Of course it is. However, trying to place this sort of violence on some arbitrary scale so you can compare it with an unrelated war action you know nothing first-hand about is ridiculous. Using this scale to minimize suffering for your own rhetorical gain is odious.
Let's all make the easy assumption that terrible things happen in our streets, and half-way across the world in places like East Timor, Viet Nam and Iraq. A further assumption is that those terrible things have repercussions that will affect all of us, to some extent, well into the future. How to compare and contrast those terrible things, so we can figure out practical ways of solving the problems that lead to them takes discipline, dialogue and careful thinking. Science, politics and, yes, anthropology are useful cognitive tools that we can use for that purpose.
Plainly put, I have no idea what the hell you were trying to say, but you made a dog's breakfast of it from the start and never recovered. I suggest backing up and revisiting your opinions and assertions from first principles.
Posted by: clvrmnky | August 10, 2008 12:30 PM