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Eric Michael Johnson

Eric Michael Johnson has a Bachelors degree in Anthropology and a Masters in Evolutionary Anthropology. He pursued his PhD in Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke before joining the University of British Columbia to complete a doctorate in the History and Philosophy of Science.

Posts by this author

July 14, 2009
On this day 76 years ago (July 14, 1933) a sterilization law was passed in Nazi Germany, known as Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses (Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring). Any German was a target if they were found to be suffering from a range of perceived hereditary…
July 13, 2009
Greenpeace banner deployed on Mt. Rushmore. Image: S.J. Carrera / Greenpeace There have been few more passionate and prescient figures in the history of science than the Russian naturalist and political radical Peter Kropotkin. Upon the confirmation of his geological research that demonstrated…
July 12, 2009
Picnic. Rob Sheridan / Creative Commons In the second of my 226,000 part series (as yet unnamed) in which I help promote my favorite photographs and artwork bearing a Creative Commons attribution license, I would like to introduce my readers to the amazing work of Rob Sheridan. Picnic is his…
July 10, 2009
Many of you on ScienceBlogs will probably already know the fabulous blog Living the Scientific Life, but did you know she could soon be your Antarctica blogger? Wouldn't you love it if she were? If so she really needs your help RIGHT NOW. Click on this link and vote. Then, contact all of your…
July 10, 2009
The "Revelation" as described by St. John, though likely inspired through the use of hallucinogens (see The Mystery of Manna).The title for this post comes from a terrific book by the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, but I think it's appropriate for a discussion on faith, feeling and reason.…
July 10, 2009
Science and religion bicker in the backseat. Collin Purrington / Creative CommonsWith Francis Collins' nomination as head of the National Institutes of Health I felt it was appropriate to bring up Sam Harris' letter to the journal Nature objecting to what he called "high-minded squeamishness" on…
July 9, 2009
On July 9, 1858 the German-American anthropologist Franz Boas was born. To honor the man widely held as the "father of American anthropology" the American Anthropological Association offered a tribute for Boas today on their blog. What conveniently went unmentioned was the fact that the AAA…
July 9, 2009
Ernest Cline, director of the recent film Fanboys, has this hilarious spoken word piece that pretty sums up my philosophy perfectly. It's put to music by The Penguin Cafe Orchestra and is accompanied by an 80's style film strip which only adds to the fun. For more of his great work (including…
July 8, 2009
Offspring Abandonment in the Ancient and Natural World In the Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex the great kingdom of Thebes is condemned following a case of mistaken identity (and a little patricide). The sordid tale begins when the infant prince is abandoned by his parents (see right) after learning of…
July 7, 2009
"It seems really very unfair that man should have chosen the gorilla to symbolize everything that is aggressive and violent, when that is one thing that gorillas are not, and that we are."- Sir Richard Attenborough This quote sets the tone for a new award winning short film (see below) from the non…
July 6, 2009
Scientia Pro Publica #7 is now up at Greg Laden's Blog. This is the crème brûlée of science carnivals and includes the best writing from the past two months. Greg was kind enough to include my recent post The Struggle for Coexistence. There are some excellent posts in this edition, so click…
July 6, 2009
Rejection of authority and working-class values inspired the scientific method. As everyone knows, when food is digested it is processed into chyle and turned into blood by the liver. This blood then flows to the lungs where it releases any impurities into the air. Flowing from the lungs into the…
July 5, 2009
Bonobos (Pan paniscus) at Frankfurt Zoo, Germany. Joachim S. Müller / Creative Commons
July 5, 2009
I've been blogging for a few years now, first at Blogger and recently at Nature Network, and in that time I've accumulated a fair amount of material. Rather than ask people to scan through my archives I thought I would repost some of my earlier pieces as a way for new readers to get an idea of…
July 4, 2009
Inspired by the nation's birthday, Larry Arnhart at Darwinian Conservatism has a few thoughts about the term "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" as it appears in the Declaration of Independence: That phrase provokes questions. Do the "Laws of Nature" depend on some religious belief in "Nature'…
July 4, 2009
There has been much speculation as to why Sarah Palin announced her sudden decision to withdraw as Governor of Alaska Friday. Nate Silver at 538.com speculates: There seem to be three* basic theories to explain why Sarah Palin decided to quit: 1. She's simply burned out; 2. There's some kind of "…
July 4, 2009
On July 4th, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a speech at an event commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence, held at Rochester's Corinthian Hall entitled, "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro": What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to…
July 4, 2009
Danny Schecter asks, how independent are we? "This isn't just about Madoff. This is about the system in which Madoff's scam took place. This is about systemic fraud and malpractice, the cultural trade of due diligence for easy profit. It's about conflicts of interest where companies paid ratings…
July 3, 2009
Or, Why I Love ScienceBlogs Reason #372: Mo at Neurophilosophy has a fascinating article on the evolutionary origins of the nervous system: THE HUMAN BRAIN is a true marvel of nature. This jelly-like 1.5kg mass inside our skulls, containing hundreds of billions of cells which between them form…
July 3, 2009
Human nature is one of those concepts that, like "common sense", everyone knows what you mean but no one knows how it's defined. Ironically, the most insistent proponents of human nature are often those who have benefited from the status quo in society and prefer people to remain just as they are…
July 1, 2009
Four Stone Hearth #70, the migrating anthropology blog carnival, has been posted today at the new site of Afarensis. I hosted the carnival earlier at the original home of The Primate Diaries, and I hope to again soon. There's a lot of great posts in this edition and I encourage everyone to check…
July 1, 2009
Image: Auzigog / Creative Commons Each week I plan to highlight a Creative Commons photographer whose work I think should reach a larger audience. This week I chose Jeremy Blanchard's self-portrait of what reading Ishmael was like the first time. Having had a similar experience myself I…
June 30, 2009
Peter and Billy Getty over at City Brights write: There are slews of people richer than we are, just in this neighborhood. We're more famous for being rich than we really are rich. But we have enough to belong to the leisure class, meaning we get to spend very little of our time doing anything we…
June 30, 2009
On June 30, 1905 Albert Einstein published his paper on Special Relativity with the paper "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" in the journal Annalen der Physik (original German version in pdf here). This was Einstein's third of what have become known as the Annus Mirabilis papers (Latin for "…
June 29, 2009
Sunrise on the Maasai Mara, Kenya. Vearl Brown / Creative Commons From the beginning our human family has been on a journey. Born together, in eastern Africa about 100,000 years ago, our ancestors migrated to distant points around the globe. Our family scattered, communication was cut off and…
June 28, 2009
   Our newborn takes after his father.The following is something of an impromptu experiment in live birth twittering. It started out simply as a means to update friends and family, but as events transpired we received some unexpected international attention. The entire labor lasted 47 hours,…
November 1, 2005
Reprinted from Wildlife Conservation Magazine "Behind Enemy Lines" November/December 2005 By Eric Michael Johnson           December 2002 -- After four days traveling upriver in a dugout canoe, Belgian primatologist Jef Dupain became the first researcher in five years to return to the war-torn…