Anthro.docx

8/11/2019 Anthro.docx

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Johann Friedrich Blumenbach(11 May 1752 22 January 1840) was aGermanphysician,naturalist,physiologist, andanthropologist. He was one of thefirst to explore the study of mankind as an aspect ofnatural history. His teachingsincomparative anatomy were applied to the classification of what he calledhuman

races,of which he determined there to be five.

In eighteenth century Germany, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach studied howindividuals within a species vary, and to explain such variations, he proposed that a

force operates on organisms as they develop. Blumenbach used metrical methods tostudy the history ofhumans, but he was also a natural historian and theorist.

Blumenbach argued for theories of the transformation of species, or the claim thatnew species can develop from existing forms. His theory ofBildungstrieb(formative drive), a developmental force withinall organisms, influenced the conceptual debates among many late nineteenth and early twentieth century embryologists

and naturalists.

Blumenbach was born 11 May 1752 in Gotha, Germany. His mother, Charlotte Eleonore Hedwig Buddeus, was the

daughter of a high-ranking official in Gotha's government. Blumenbach's father, Heinrich Blumenbach, was the assistantheadmaster at the local gymnasium, or primary school. Blumenbach completed his early education in Gotha, graduating

from the gymnasium in 1769. After graduation, he attended the University of Jena, in Jena, Germany, before moving tothe University of Gttingen, in Gttingen, Germany. While a student at the University of Gttingen, Blumenbach studied

with naturalist Christian W. Bttner. Bttner taught Blumenbach via his lectures on exotic cultures and peoples, and heencouraged Blumenbach to write his dissertation on such communities.

In 1775 Blumenbach received his medical degree from the University of Gttingen after completing his dissertation, "De

Generis Humani Varietate Native Liber" ("On the Natural Varieties of Mankind"). This text showed that the variationsthat exist in the human form do not represent differences between human species. In his dissertation, he also introducedthe term Caucasian as a term for white Europeans. Blumenbach's dissertation is an early demonstration of comparativeanatomy to objectively study human history. While earlier scholars, like Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, inFrance, had created classifications ofhumans,they based their works largely on subjective behavioral characteristics and

cultural biases. Blumenbach argued that there are five distinct races of mankind within a single species, a conclusion hederived from detailed studies of skulls and human anatomy. Although Blumenbach recognized distinct races, he also

believed in the unity of the human species, and he combated the use of anthropology as a means to promotediscrimination.

Following the publication of his dissertation, Blumenbach became curator of thenatural history collection at the

University of Gttingen. In 1778 he became a professor of medicine and married the daughter of an administrator at theuniversity. The following year, Blumenbach publishedHandbuch der Naturgeschichte(Handbook of Natural History), inwhich he evaluated morphological and ecological evidence from which he created a system to classify organisms.

Blumenbach believed that the Linnaean system of classification, developed by Carl Linnaeus in the 1735 text SystemaNaturae, published while Linnaeus was in the Netherlands, defined species on the basis of single, often arbitrarily chosen,characteristics, a practice that many thought produced artificial groups that did not accurately reflect nature. Blumenbachhoped to correct these supposed problems with the Linnaean system by defining species based on a series ofmorphological characters, which he presented in hisHandbuch. He also recognized the potential for species to change

through time or to become extinct. Blumenbach later expanded on those topics in hisBeitrge zurNaturgeschichte(Contributions to Natural History), in which he further investigated individual variability and thepossibility that the Earth had a long history.

In 1780 Blumenbach presented his concept ofBildungstrieb, or the formative force, an idea that influenced many in anembryological debate of his time and that affected developmental research and natural philosophy for more than acentury. In his paper, "ber den Bildungstrieb (Nisus Formativus) und Seinen Einfluss auf die Generation undReproduktion" ("On the Formative Force and its Influence on Generation and Reproduction") BlumenbachdescribedBildungstriebas a force within all organisms that operated on their bodies throughout development in order togive rise to their final forms.
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Blumenbach'sBildungstrieb concept influenced the debate between preformationists and epigenesists, as it attacked theassumptions underlying preformationism. According to preformationism, an organism existed fully formed withintheegg orsperm (germ cell), and the process of development was one of the animal unfolding, or growing, from itsminiature germinal form to more mature and adult forms. Many scholars, such asAlbrecht von Haller, in Switzerland

Marcello Malpighi, in Italy, andJan Swammerdam,in the Netherlands, believed that some form of preformationism bestexplained development. On the other hand, according toepigenesis,each embryo generated anew by gradually developingfrom unorganized materials, a theory supported by theCaspar Friedrich Wolff,in Russia. Previous authors, such as Wolffhad offered notions similar toBildungstrieb, of vital forces that shaped the body. However, Blumenbach's concept went

beyond those offered by other scholars, as it reinforced the arguments forepigenesis. He provided a framework for

understanding a force for development that was both teleological, in that it acted towards a final form, and constitutive, inthat it could organize development.

Blumenbach applied hisBildungstrieb concept in his following works and various scholars utilized his concept. In thesecond edition of On the Natural Varieties of Mankind, Blumenbach usedBildungstriebto explain the degeneration of anoriginal type of human into the five varietieswhich he later classified as Caucasian, Mongolian, Malayan, Ethiopian

and Americanfound around the world. In Contributions to Natural History, published in 1790, Blumenbach describedhowBildungstrieboperated after the Biblical flood to produce new species. The concept was adopted by the writer andnatural philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in Germany, and the philosopher Immanuel Kant in Prussia. Nearly onehundred years after Blumenbach's formulation of the concept,Ernst Haeckel, the chair of zoology at theUniversity oJena, employedBildungstrieb as the foundation of his theories on individual developmenttheories which influenced

embryological research well into the twentieth century.

Blumenbach participated in more than seventy academies and scientific organizations, and he continued to teach at the

University of Gttingen during his later years. His textbook,Handbuch der Vergleichenden Anatomie(Handbook ofComparative Anatomy), published in 1805, influenced many throughout the history of comparative anatomy. In 1816Blumenbach earned the appointmentprofessor primariusof the Faculty of Medicine. Throughout his tenure at GttingenBlumenbach taught many students, such as the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, and the early proponentofrecapitulation theory,Carl Friedrich Kielmeyer. An active naturalist throughout life, Blumenbach was among the first

to describe the wooly mammoth,Mammuthus primigenius,and he helped name the platypus,Ornithorhynchus anatinusHe helped turn thenatural history collection at the University of Gttingen into one of the first anthropological museumsin the world, as he amassed and catalogued skulls, hair, skins, casts, and pictures from places around the world. When

Blumenbach was appointed curator in 1776, the collection housed 85 skulls; when he died on 22 January 1840, the

collection had grown to 245 skulls with detailed accounts of their origin. Blumenbach's skull collection, including theskulls that formed the basis of his dissertation and his theory of the five varieties of human, persisted at the University ofGttingen into the twenty-first century.- See more at: http://embryo.asu.edu/pages/johann-friedrich-blumenbach-1752-1840#sthash.ivjEpRbH.dpuf

Career

He was appointedextraordinary professor of medicine and inspector of the museum ofnatural history inGttingen in1776 andordinary professor in 1778. He soon began to enrich the pages of the Medicinische Bibliothek, of which he waseditor from 1780 to 1794, with various contributions on medicine, physiology, and anatomy. In physiology, he was of the

school ofHaller,and was in the habit of illustrating his theory by a careful comparison of the animal functions of manwith those of other animals.His reputation was much extended by the publication of hisInstitutionesPhysiologicae(1787), a condensed, well-arranged view of the animal functions, expounded without discussion of minuteanatomical details. Between its first publication and 1821, it went through many editions in Germany, where it was thegeneral textbook of the science. It was translated into English in America by Caldwell in 1798, and in London byElliotson in 1807.

He was perhaps still more extensively known by hisHandbuch der vergleichenden Anatomie(Handbook of comparativeanatomy), of which the German editions were numerous, from its appearance in 1805 to 1824. It was translated intoEnglish in 1809 by the surgeon Lawrence, and again, with the latest improvements and editions, by Coulson in 1827. Thismanual, though slighter than the subsequent works of Cuvier, Carus, and others, and not to be compared with such later
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expositions as that of Gegenbaur, was long esteemed for the accuracy of the author's own observations, and his justappreciation of the labors of his predecessors.

Although the greatest part of Blumenbach's life was passed at Gttingen, in 1789 he visited Switzerland, and gave acurious medical topography of that country in theBibliothek. He was inEngland in 1788 and 1792. He was elected aForeign Honorary Member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1794. In 1812 he was appointed secretaryto the Royal Society of Sciences at Gttingen, in 1816 was appointed physician to the royal familyinHanover (German:Obermedizinalrat) by the prince regent, in 1821 was made a knight-commander of the GuelphicOrder, and in 1831 was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences at Paris. In celebration of his doctoral jubilee

(1825) traveling scholarships were founded to assist talented young physicians and naturalists. In 1813, he was elected aforeign member of theRoyal Swedish Academy of Sciences.In 1835 he retired. Blumenbach died inGttingen in 1840.

Beliefs on races

Blumenbach's fiveraces.

Blumenbach's work included his description of sixtyhuman crania (skulls) published originally in fascicules asDecascraniorum(Gttingen, 17901828). This was a founding work for other scientists in the field ofcraniometry.He dividedthe humanspecies into fiveraces in 1779, later founded on crania research (description of human skulls), and called them

(1793/1795):

theCaucasian or white race

theMongolian or yellow race, including allEast Asians and someCentral Asians. theMalayan or brown race, including Southeast Asian and Pacific Islanders.

theEthiopian or black race, including sub-Saharan Africans. theAmerican or red race, including American Indians.

Further anatomical study led him to the conclusion that 'individual Africans differ as much, or even more, from otherindividual Africans as Europeans differ from Europeans'.

Blumenbach argued that physical characteristics like skin color, cranial profile, etc., depended on geography, diet, and

mannerism. Like othermonogenists such asGeorges-Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon, Blumenbach held to the"degenerative hypothesis" of racial origins. Blumenbach claimed thatAdam and Eve wereCaucasian (Georgian)

inhabitants of Asia, (seeAsia hypothesis), and that other races came about by degeneration from environmental factorssuch as the sun and poor diet. Thus, he claimed, Negroidpigmentation arose because of the result of the heat of thetropical sun, while the cold wind caused the tawny colour of the Eskimos,while theChinese were fair-skinned compared

to the other Asian stocks because they kept mostly in towns protected from environmental factors. He believed that thedegeneration could be reversed in a proper environmental control and that all contemporary forms of man could revert to

the originalCaucasian race.

Furthermore, he concluded that Africans were not inferior to the rest of mankind 'concerning healthy faculties of

understanding, excellent natural talents and mental capacities', and is quoted as saying the following:

"Finally, I am of opinion that after all these numerous instances I have brought together of negroes of capacity, it wouldnot be difficult to mention entire well-known provinces of Europe, from out of which you would not easily expect toobtain off-hand such good authors, poets, philosophers, and correspondents of the Paris Academy; and on the other hand,there is no so-called savage nation known under the sun which has so much distinguished itself by such examples of

perfectibility and original capacity for scientific culture, and thereby attached itself so closely to the most civilized nationof the earth, as the Negro."

He did not consider his "degenerative hypothesis" as racist and sharply criticizedChristoph Meiners,an early practitioner

ofscientific racialism,as well asSamuel Thomas von Smmerring who concluded from autopsies that Africans were aninferior race. Blumenbach wrote three other essays stating non-white peoples are capable of excelling in arts and sciencesin reaction against racialists of his time.

These ideas were far less influential. His ideas were adopted by other researchers and encouragedscientificracism.Blumenbach's work was used by many biologists and comparative anatomists in the nineteenth century who were

interested in the origin of races, includingWells,Lawrence,Prichard,Huxley andWilliam Flower.
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Expanding on the work of Carolus Linnaeus, German professorof medicine Johann Friedrich Blumenbach introduced one of therace-based classifications inOn the Natural Variety of Mankind.In the second edition Blumenbach changed his original

geographically based four-race arrangement to a five-group onethat emphasized physical morphology (the study of the form ofan organism). Blumenbachs five categories were: Caucasian, thewhite race; Mongolian, the yellow race; Malayan, the brownrace; Ethiopian, the black race; and American, the red race.

Although he retained geographical names for his categories, thechange marked a shift from geography to physical appearance.

Blumenbachs SignificanceOn July 4, 1776 a group of men met in Philadelphia and promulgated a document that would become the foundation of a

new country based on universal rights: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that theyare endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are, the pursuit of life, liberty, and

happiness. At precisely the same time, a young German student from the University of Gttingen had just published hisdoctoral thesis entitledDe generis humani varietate nativa (first published in English in with the title On the NaturaVarieties of Mankind). Though very different in their nature and intent, both texts can be regarded as embodying keyvalues of the European Enlightenment, the most important being the general, universal applicability to all mankind.

When J. F. Blumenbach, Professor of Medicine in the University of Gottingen died in the opening month of 1840 he hadenjoyed for half-a-century a fame such as has fallen to the lot of few men of science. The rising young anthropologists oEngland--James Cowles Prichard and William Lawrence-modelled their methods on his and dedicated their books to him;Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society opened his portfolios and cabinets to him and made him gifts; the RoyaPrinces of England were sent to Gottingen to listen to his lectures; the Princes of multi-state Germany vied with each

other to do him honour ; Gottingen made him free of municipal taxes ; his university which he served for 65 years,worshipped him; learned people from all countries of the world crowded his lecture theatre ; seventy-eight learnedsocieties were proud to have his name on their honorary list; new species of animals and plants were named after him.Famous explorers offered him the best of their treasures.

Recent scholarly literature on Johann Friedrich Blumenbach has focused on the role he played in developing thescientific concept of race in the late 18th century. In so doing, his dissertation On the Natural Variety of

Mankind becomes a key foundational text in the history of European race and racism. For the past couple ofdecades scholars have attempted to delineate the historical development of racism, and an important element in thiseffort has been to identify foundational texts In a sense they have been searching for the smoking gun texts that

played a formative role in the development of 19th century racism. InWhat seems to have been overlooked in the literature, however, is the glaring absence of the w ord race in his textThe word does not occur at all in the work, and in fact, it is a word that is rarely used by Blumenbach in all his

published writings. Another overlooked fact --an obvious one--in Blumenbachs published dissertation is the wordvariety occurs in the singular form in the title, not the plural.

Much of the researchBlumenbachsOn the Natural Variety of Mankind is indeed a seminal text, but the reasons for this are decidedly

broader and more far -reaching than his

Situating Race in Human Social HistoryFor most people living in the United States, Europe, and in many other

Countries around the world, race has played--and continues to play--an important role inorganizing society and in defining ones identity. As a biological concept, race seems anatural part of human existence, something that would make sense when dealing with a

science like biology. Historically, race has been embedded in legaldocuments defining a persons status in the United States, and it even


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plays a role in defining citizenship in many countries. In Germany, for example, during the 1990s hundreds ofthousands of Eastern Europeans returned to Germany and could claim immediate citizenship if they demonstratedeven a fraction of German ancestry, or blood, in their roots. This massive influx of people created a significantamount of stress on Germanys social infrastructure, since the large majority of these immigrants spoke little or no

German, and had come from cultures vastly different from Germany. Behind this repatriation is the continuingbelief that Germanness possesses a biological essentiality, and that it is possible to identify, physiologically, what itis that makes a German a German. This biological association is in stark contrast to the count less thousands of

people who have lived in Germany for many years, who are thoroughly versed in the language and culture, but whoare still generally regarded as Auslnder, or foreigners, by other Germans.

This physiological association with national or ethnic identity plays out in the day-to-day lives ofmillions of people in Germany and in countries around the world. As a teacher in a German schoolin the 1980s, I had a student who was of Japanese ancestry. She was born in Germany and wasthoroughly German; she could speak no Japanese and did not overtly identify with her ethnic

heritage. Nonetheless, for other Germans she was Asiatin, an Asian, and it was inconceivable thatshe be regarded, culturally or socially, as German. This played out in many ways within the school

community, and even one of my colleagues, a secondary-level teacher, was convinced he couldidentify personality or psychological qualities that were distinctly Asian--and hence not German--inthe students character, and this in a person who had never been to Asia in her life! The situation is changing asGermany and other European countries become increasingly multicultural, but this kind of phenotypic dissonanceis still an integral part of a changing German society.

As the above examples with Germany clearly demonstrate, though race is used in a biological sense, exactly what itis denoting biologically is something that has been defined differently at various times historically and in differentsocieties. In reality, Germany is anything but the stereotypic tall blond nation often characterized in the massmedia, and a whirlwind trip around Germany by train is all that is necessary to notice a remarkable variety and

wide range of phenotypic characteristics that make up German society. From the short, rather sanguine and stockyBavarians--frequently with reddish hair, on through to the more Scandinavian type found in the north, there exists alarge variety of physiological types among Germans.

Indeed, as has been noted again and again in the German-language literature, this diversity has existed forcenturies, which is a living manifestation of the waves of migrating peoples that have populated the middle part of

Europe we now call Germany since Roman antiquity. Viewed historically, the range of diversity becomes evengreater, with such factors as changing diet and social or class differences also playing a notable role over time.

Until well into the 19th century, the vast majority of Europeans were rural peasants or urban poor; only a verysmall minority approached the kinds of phenotypic ideals that were characterized in the early anthropologicalliterature on race. It is important to keep the reality of this essential European diversity in mind when consideringthe rise of the race concept in the 18th century.The varying manner in which race is understood from country to country would seem to contradict the biological

nature of race, and behind this seeming contradiction lies the dilemma of its viability as a scientific categ oryScientific phenomena should possess general validity, and hence not vary from culture to culture and at various

times in history. Taxonomic classification in the plant and animal kingdoms, as a scientific tool, is generally validamong scientists around the world. Uniformity in the application of race in humans is decidedly not consistent,

neither historically nor culturally. This was especially true in Europe in the 19th century, in which countries such as

France, Great Britain, and Germany had widely varying views on what constituted race, and often used itinterchangeably with what we would regard as ethnicity today.

The concept of race did not exist before the 18th century, it represents an historical phenomenon developed as anintegral part of anthropology during the European Enlightenment. It became, in fact, a key defining element in therise of anthropology in the 19th century. This sweeping statement may come as a surprise, and may even bedisorienting, for many people, because of the apparently biological nature of race. The qualities that make up raceare instantly recognizable in ones physical appearance, so how is it possible that such physical qualities would

possess an historical nature that at one time did not exist? If race did not exist before the 18th century, then whatwas it that people noticed in others before the 18th century? What were the differences that distinguished thegroupings of peoples in various regions and countries?


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An essential part of what defines humans is the unique malleability of their social nature, it is what distinguisheshumans from other animals. How humans define themselves within a community, within a grouping of otherindividuals, plays a critical role in understanding much of human existence. The quality o f belongingness, orfeeling oneself a part of a larger group, has been an essential feature of human history. Phenotypic characteristics,

or physiological features, have been a primary distinguishing means of identifying whether one belongs to acommunity. The sense of belongingness is an essential quality in developing trust among the individuals of agroup.

Until the European Industrial Revolution of the 19th century, the vast majority of the worlds population lived close

to the land in small communities. One rarely ventured far from ones family village or town, and when they did itwas the rare or occasional trip to a larger center of commerce, usually a small regional city or the like. Village

populations remained relatively stable, and in fact most people within a community were in some way related ascousins, aunts, or uncles, however distant, thus perpetuating a relatively small but stable gene pool. Geneticrelatedness and the social quality of belongingness worked hand-in-hand in traditional societies in identifying the

members of a community phenotypically.These traditional patterns still exist in many parts of the world today, even in parts of modern Europe and the

United States. As a Qubcois who can trace my family lineage back to the 17th century in the same general areaalong the Ottawa River, I am not unusual for a French-Canadian in having parents who are related to one another asdistant cousins. In the small New England town where I live, community and political life is still dominated by ahandful of local families who can trace their roots in the town back to early colonial times. This can frequently playout in ways that are readily noticed by the local inhabitants in phenotypic, or physiological, ways. I still recall

vividly the conversations I had many years ago with my German mother-in-law about her local cultural geographyin which she matter-of-factly informed me she could still identify, both through their appearance and their accent,the inhabitants of a neighboring village that was only a couple of kilometers away.This localized connection between phenotypic qualities and social or cultural traits is a reason why outsiders oftenare not able to notice them. Just as Westerners often are unable to distinguish between Asians from different

countries, so was it impossible for me to see what my mother-in-law clearly noticed in the neighboring villagersThis is an excellent example of how acculturation affects what we physically perceive in our environment. Thatculture would affect physiology in such a way would seem counter- intuitive, and this apparent groundedness in

physical biology provides us with an important clue why it is difficult for many people to understand how race canbe an historical and cultural construct.

The immediacy of extended family-centric community life

was the predominant means of structuring ones social identity in terms of cultural geography for most of theworld--including Europe--in the 18th century. Though

written histories tend to deal with much larger socialorganizational units such as principalities or kingdoms,most Europeans did not think in terms of these larger

geographic or political units in the 18th century. There was,for example, no political entity known as Germany until

much later in the 19th century. Most Germans organizedtheir social or political geography around much smaller

local or regional units that may or may not have coincidedwith a larger principality or dukedom. Typically, in middle Europe geographic features such as a valley, river, or a

mountain range would act as natural boundaries defining social groups or communities.

References:

http://www.blumenbach.info/Blumenbach.htmlhttp://embryo.asu.edu/pages/johann-friedrich-blumenbach-1752-1840http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Friedrich_Blumenbachhttp://www.understandingrace.org/history/science/early_class.htmlhttp://www.blumenbach.info/Introduction.html
http://www.blumenbach.info/Blumenbach.htmlhttp://embryo.asu.edu/pages/johann-friedrich-blumenbach-1752-1840http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Friedrich_Blumenbachhttp://www.understandingrace.org/history/science/early_class.htmlhttp://www.blumenbach.info/Introduction.htmlhttp://www.blumenbach.info/Introduction.htmlhttp://www.understandingrace.org/history/science/early_class.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Friedrich_Blumenbachhttp://embryo.asu.edu/pages/johann-friedrich-blumenbach-1752-1840http://www.blumenbach.info/Blumenbach.html


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John Philippe Rushton (December 3, 1943 October 2, 2012) was aBritish-bornCanadianpsychologyprofessor at theUniversity ofWestern Ontario who became known to the general public during the1980s and 1990s for research onrace and intelligence,race and crime,

and other apparentracial variation. His bookRace, Evolution andBehavior(1995) is about the application ofr/K selection theory tohumans.

Rushton's controversial work came under attack within the scientific

community for the quality of the research, and allegations that itwasracist. From 2002 he was head of thePioneer Fund, a researchfoundation accused of being racist.

Rushton was a Fellow of theAmerican, British, andCanadian

Psychological Associations[citation needed] and onetime Fellow of theJohn

Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Application of r/K selection theory to race

Rushton's bookRace, Evolution, and Behavior(1995) usesr/K selection theory to explain howEast Asians consistentlyaverage high,blacks low, andwhites in the middle on an evolutionary scale of characteristics indicative of nurturing

behavior. He first published this theory in 1984. Rushton argues that East Asians and their descendants average a largerbrain size, greater intelligence, more sexual restraint, slower rates of maturation, and greater law abidingness and socia

organization than do Europeans and their descendants, who average higher scores on these dimensions than Africans andtheir descendants. He theorizes that r/K selection theory explains these differences. Rushton's application of r/K selection

theory to explain differences among racial groups has been widely criticised. One of his many critics is the evolutionarybiologistJoseph L. Graves, who has done extensive testing of the r/K selection theory with species ofDrosophila fliesGraves argues that not only is r/K selection theory considered to be virtually useless when applied to human life history

evolution, but Rushton does not apply the theory correctly, and displays a lack of understanding of evolutionary theory ingeneral. Graves also says that Rushton misrepresented the sources for the biological data he gathered in support of his

hypothesis, and that much of his social science data was collected by dubious means. Other scholars have argued againstRushton's hypothesis on the basis that the concept ofrace is not supported by genetic evidence about the diversity ofhuman populations, and that his research was based onfolk taxonomies.A number of later studies by Rushton and otherresearchers have argued that there is empirical support for the theory. PsychologistDavid P. Barash notes that r- and Kselection may have some validity when considering the so-calleddemographic transition,whereby economic development

characteristically leads to reduced family size and other K traits. "But this is a pan-human phenomenon, a flexibleadaptive response to changed environmental conditions...Rushton wields r- and K-selection as a Procrustean bed, doingwhat he can to make the available data fit[...]. Bad science and virulent racial prejudice drip like pus from nearly every

page of this despicable book."

J. Philippe Rushton

(an extract froma much longer review)

Although independent researchers have repeatedly confirmed: (1) The geographical distribution of intelligence, (2), therelationship between intelligence and brain size, (3), the geographical distribution of brain size, and (4), the heritability ofintelligence, Diamond, the author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee, is like a composite of the three wisemonkeys and does not want to see, hear, or say anything about these topics. Therefore, I will briefly summarize them.Readers seeking a more extensive summary can consult The Bell Curve, and for a complete discussion of how brain sizeand IQ explain much of human behavior and are in turn explained by human evolution, see myRace, Evolution, andBehavior.

1. The geographical distribution of intelligence. One hundred years of research has established that East Asians andEuropeans average higher IQs than do Africans. East Asians, measured in North America and in Pacific Rim countriestypically average IQs in the range of 101 to 111. Caucasoid populations in North America, Europe, and Australasiatypically average IQs from 85 to 115 with an overall mean of 100. African populations living south of the Sahara, in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadianhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Western_Ontariohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Western_Ontariohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligencehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_Stateshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_classification)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race,_Evolution_and_Behaviorhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race,_Evolution_and_Behaviorhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race,_Evolution_and_Behaviorhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race,_Evolution_and_Behaviorhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theoryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racisthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Fundhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Psychological_Associationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Psychological_Associationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Psychological_Associationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_neededhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_neededhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_neededhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Simon_Guggenheim_Memorial_Foundationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Simon_Guggenheim_Memorial_Foundationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race,_Evolution,_and_Behaviorhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race,_Evolution,_and_Behaviorhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race,_Evolution,_and_Behaviorhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theoryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asianshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_peoplehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiteshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_biologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_biologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_L._Graveshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drosophilahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(classification_of_humans)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_taxonomyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_P._Barashhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transitionhttp://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9712&L=anthro-l&O=T&P=34254http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9712&L=anthro-l&O=T&P=34254http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transitionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_P._Barashhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_taxonomyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(classification_of_humans)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drosophilahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_L._Graveshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_biologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_biologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiteshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_peoplehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asianshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theoryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race,_Evolution,_and_Behaviorhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Simon_Guggenheim_Memorial_Foundationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Simon_Guggenheim_Memorial_Foundationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_neededhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Psychological_Associationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Psychological_Associationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Psychological_Associationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Fundhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racisthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theoryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race,_Evolution_and_Behaviorhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race,_Evolution_and_Behaviorhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_classification)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_Stateshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligencehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Western_Ontariohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Western_Ontariohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian


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North America, in the Caribbean, and in Britain typically have mean IQs from 70 to 90 (see Lynn, 1997, for acomprehensive review).

Parallel differences are found on relatively culture-free tests such as speed of decision making. All children can perform

the task in less than one second, but children with higher IQ scores perform faster than do those with lower scores. Asianchildren in Hong Kong and Japan average faster than do European children from Britain and Ireland, who in turn averagefaster than do African children from South Africa. This same pattern of racial differences is also found in California.

2. The relationship between intelligence and brain size. Diamond neglects to mention any of the remarkable discoveriesmade during the 1990's "decade of the brain" using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Such MRI studies, which

construct three-dimensional models of the brain in vivo, show a correlation of about 0.40 between brain size and IQ, asreplicable a set of results as can be found in the social and behavioral sciences. The first MRI/IQ studies were published inthe late 1980's and early 1990's in leading, refereed, mainstream journals like Intelligence (Willerman et al., 1991) and the

American Journal of Psychiatry (Andreasen et al., 1993).

3. The parallel geographical distribution of brain size. Racial differences in brain size have been established recently usingwet brain weight at autopsy, volume of empty skulls using filler, and volume estimated from head sizes. Using

endocranial volume, for example, Beals et al. (1984, p. 307, Table 5) analyzed about 20,000 skulls from around the world.East Asians averaged 1,415 cm3 (SD = 51), Europeans averaged 1,362 cm3 (SD = 35), and Africans averaged 1,268 cm3(SD = 85). Using external head measures to calculate cranial capacities, Rushton (1992) analyzed a stratified randomsample of 6,325 U.S. Army personnel measured in 1988 for fitting helmets and found that Asian Americans averaged1,416 cm3 (SD = 104 cm3), European Americans 1,380 cm3 (SD = 92), and African Americans 1,359 cm3 (SD = 95).

Moreover, a recent MRI study found that people of African and Caribbean background averaged a smaller brain volumethan did those of European background (Harvey, Persaud, Ron, Baker & Murray, 1994).

Contrary to purely environmental theories, these racial differences in brain size show up early in life. Data from the U.S

National Collaborative Perinatal Project on 35,000 children found that Asian children average a larger head perimeter atbirth than do White children who average a larger head perimeter than do Black children, even though, at age sevenAsian children average smaller body size (and Africans larger body size) than do Europeans. Further, head perimeter at

seven years correlates with IQ at age seven in all three racial groups (see Rushton & Ankney, 1996, for review).

4. The heritability of intelligence. As discussed in The Bell Curve and Race, Evolution, and Behavior, the heritability of

intelligence is now well established from numerous adoption, twin, and family studies. Particularly noteworthy are theheritabilities of around 80% found in adult twins reared apart (Bouchard, Lykken, McGue, Segal & Tellegen, 1990).Moderate to substantial genetic influence on IQ has also been found in studies of non-Whites, including African

Americans and Japanese. Even the most critical of meta-analyses find IQ about 50% heritable (Devlin, Daniels & Roeder,1997).

Transracial adoption studies suggest a genetic contribution to the between-group differences. Studies of Korean andVietnamese children adopted into White American and White Belgian homes show that, although as babies many had

been hospitalized for malnutrition, they grew to excel in academic ability with IQs 10 points or more higher than theiradoptive national norms (Frydman & Lynn, 1989). By contrast, Weinberg, Scarr and Waldman (1992) found that at age

17, Black and Mixed-Race children adopted into White middle-class families performed at a lower level than the Whitesiblings with whom they had been raised.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Philippe_Rushton

http://danny.oz.au/communities/anthro-l/debates/race-iq/http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1996reviewRushton.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Philippe_Rushtonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Philippe_Rushton


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Cultural Anthropology

Cultural anthropology is a major division of anthropology that deals with the

study of culture in all its aspects and that uses the methods, concepts, and data of

archaeology, ethnography and ethnology, folklore, and linguistics in its

descriptions and analyses of the diverse peoples of the world.

Modern cultural anthropology as a field of research has its roots in the Age of

Discovery, when technologically advanced European cultures came into

extended contact with various "traditional" cultures, which for the most part the

Europeans grouped indiscriminately under the general rubrics "savage" or"primitive." By the mid-19th century, such questions as the origins of the world's

diverse cultures and peoples and their languages had become matters of great

interest in western Europe.

The concept of evolution, as formally proposed by Charles Darwin with the

publication in 1859 of The Origin of Species, lent considerable impetus to this

research into the development of societies and cultures over time.

Anthropology was dominated in the latter 19th century by a linear conception of history, in which all human groups were said to pass

through specified stages of cultural evolution, from a state of "savagery" to "barbarism" and finally to that of "civilized man" (i.e.

western European man).

At the onset of the 20th century, the strong cultural biases of the early western European and North American anthropologists were

gradually discarded in favour of a more pluralistic, relativistic outlook in which each human culture was viewed as a unique product o

physical environment, cultural contacts, and other divergent factors.

Out of this orientation came a new emphasis on empirical data, fieldwork, and hard evidence of human behaviour and social

organization within a given cultural environment. The prime exemplar of this approach was a German-born American, Franz Boas

known as the founder of the culture history school of anthropology.

Boas and his followers--notably, Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, and Edward Sapir - dominated American anthropology throughout

much of the 20th century. The culture history school was rooted in a functionalist approach to culture materials and sought an

expression of unity between the various patterns, traits, and customs within a particular culture.

Meanwhile, in France, Marcel Mauss, founder of the Institute of Ethnology of the University of Paris, studied human societies as tota

systems, self-regulating and adaptive to changing circumstances in ways designed to preserve the integrity of the system. Mauss

exerted considerable influence over such disparate figures as Claude Lvi-Strauss in France and Bronislaw Malinowski and A.R

Radcliffe-Brown in England.

While Malinowski went on to pursue a strictly functionalist approach, Radcliffe-Brown and Levi-Strauss developed the principles of

structuralism. The functionalists asserted that the only valid method of analyzing social phenomena was to define the function theyperformed in a society.

The structuralists, by contrast, sought to identify a system or structure underlying the broad spectrum of social phenomena in

particular cultures, a system of which the members of a society maintain only a dim awareness through the use of myths and symbols.

Studies of Southwest American Indian groups in the 1930s by Ruth Benedict marked the emergence of the subdiscipline of cultura

anthropology known as cultural psychology.

Benedict proposed that cultures in their slow development imposed a unique "psychological set" on their members, who interpreted

reality along lines oriented by the culture, regardless of environmental factors.

The interrelation of culture and personality, as exemplified in the cultural value-systems of both traditional and modern societies, has

become the subject of extensive research.

In their fieldwork, early 20th-century cultural anthropologists produced many studies of family life and structure, marriage, kinship

and local grouping, and magic and witchcraft.

During the second half of the century, while kinship studies remained a central concern, social status and power attracted moreattention as researchers investigated the political and legal systems of different societies from an anthropological standpoint. More

serious attention was paid to religious ideas and rituals as well.

Interest shifted from African peoples, who had occupied cultural anthropologists for a quarter of a century, to peoples in India,

Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific Ocean islands.

The analysis of social change became a prominent area of research in the decades after World War II as many Third World countries

undertook programs of economic development and industrialization. Since then, the application of computers has made possible a

much greater use of quantitative data, as in studies of family and domestic group relations, marriage, divorce, and economic

transactions.

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