Word: anthropologists
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...women have always practiced abortion, defying all laws or taboos against it, including the death penalty, which still exists in Pakistan. The inevitable Egyptian papyrus mentions it; Aristotle urged it in general terms, and so did Plato for every woman after 40; Roman husbands were entitled to order it. Anthropologist George Devereux has catalogued dozens of ancient methods-magical incantations, jumping from high places, applying hot coals to the abdomen. Hawaiian women fashioned stilettos representing Kupo, god of abortions, then thrust them into the uterus. Even now, Ceylonese girls brew an abortifacient by boiling a poisonous yam in cow urine...
...train unsupervised treasure hunting and souvenir collecting. Before it is too late, Father Sebastian pleads, a fund must be set up to uncover and restore the island's largely uninvestigated monuments. "Fully restored," says Tour Director Lars-Eric Lindblad, "Easter Island will equal anything in Egypt." Says Anthropologist Dr. William Mulloy, an associate of Father Sebastian's: "If some sort of control is not exercised, within a decade the island will be lost...
...keep open the possibility that the races of man can be intellectually ranked. To Curt Stern, a geneticist at the University of California at Berkeley, it seems unreasonable to conclude that "because there is no evidence of inherent inequalities, the situation couldn't exist." Says University of Colorado Anthropologist John Greenway: "I would not want to say that an Australian Aborigine is dumber than I am, because there is no way to tell. In their noncompetitive society there is no way to make any tests and hence no way to make comparisons. We don't know what...
...adaptively significant traits is emotionally repugnant to some people," wrote Geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky in Mankind Evolving. "Any inquiry into this matter is felt to be dangerous, lest it vindicate race prejudice." Undeniably, racial prejudice is social or cultural in origin rather than biological, and it is understandable that anthropologists, who hesitate to make value judgments on the basis of biological fact, would hesitate also to enter what is fundamentally a sociological-and highly emotional-controversy. Anthropologist Morton Fried says that "participation in a 'debate' over racial differences in intelligence, ability or achievement potential is not participation...
Most psychologists have now abandoned the notion that intelligence can be accurately tested; it is difficult even to define the terms. Einstein once confessed to Anthropologist Ashley Montagu that in the Australian Aborigine's society, he would rightfully be regarded as an intellectual idiot who could neither track a wallaby nor throw a boomerang. As Anthropologist Stanley Garn has dryly noted, if the Aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western civilization would presumably flunk it. "It is possible that some of the behavioral differences between human groups may be genetically determined," says University of Michigan Anthropologist Ernst Goldschmidt...