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Sunday, July 03, 2005
Week in Review 1(4)
NT Week in Review
Vol. I, Issue 4
Despite working my posterior off at the yacht club over the past couple of days (and the 4th isn't even until tomorrow!), I have a quality list of blog posts and news stories to include in this week's edition. Let's get to it:
From the blogs:
If you read anything from this week's edition, read this Savage Minds post about morality and anthropology. Oneman charges head on into the difficult question of what is anthropology's "moral core?":
My concern is with the moral values and principles that are put into practice or embedded in the practice of anthropology itself. How do we justify our own existence? On what are our claims to authority premised? What do we hope to accomplish with our work? Obviously, there’s some grey areas between this sense and the sense I outlined above, but in many ways anthropology is a study of grey areas and I don’t find this overlap too disturbing.
Heavy questions and some that anyone in the field should think about.
Adam at In the Agora writes about his dismay at the media's coverage of the Dennis Rader (the "BTK Killer") murder story. Not so much the coverage of the story itself but how the news channels are airing Rader's graphic descriptions of his murders. As the first comment states, it's all about ratings.
Paul attacks again, this time Conservative commentator Dennis Prager's rejection of a humanist worldview, accusing it of "reducing the status of humans to that of a dolphin" and that "Without God, man is another part of the ecosystem, and a lousy one at that." Would it be correct to assume that such a point of view says alot about one's confidence of life? I believe that man is just another part of the ecosystem, but I'm pretty darn happy with my position.
The news, NT style:
This is cool:
PORTLAND, Ore. - After nearly a decade of court battles, scientists plan to begin studying the 9,300-year-old skeleton known as Kennewick Man next week.
A team of scientists plans to examine the bones at the University of Washington's Burke Museum in Seattle beginning July 6, according to their attorney, Alan Schneider.
How far will technology go? New Scientist has a great article about a proposed technological "dark age" that is looming just around the temporal corner. When will it happen? According to Jonathan Huebner, a physicist at the Pentagon, I'll be 42 when it happens (2024). Skepticism of his claim seems to be reasonable and I'll reserve judgment for now on whether or not we'll stop getting cool stuff, like smaller iPods and thinner televisions (thanks Dienekes).
The Woodstock of Evolution: Scientific American has a thorough article on the World Summit on Evolution, held in the Galapagos. Besides discussing the conference, you can read a bit about the history and opinions of evolutionary theory.
Finally, The tyranny of therapism: haven't read all of this yet but it seems interesting/enlightening. Homework assignment: read it and write a 10-page report summarizing and elaborating on the main points:)
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The Nomadic Thoughts Week in Review Series presents the "best of" from the roughly three dozen anthropology, philosophy, religion, and science news feeds that make up a part of Will's blogroll. It is published every Sunday night/Monday morning.
Posted by Will at July 3, 2005 06:57 PM in