TheAnthroGeek

The Study of Humanity’s Geekiest Blog

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TheAnthroGeek has a phd in anthropology from Columbia University in NYC. But don’t assume that means he knows anything!

  • Archaeologists are in fact Anthropologists

    Dear NPR,
    Archaeologists are in fact Anthropologists

    In a recent story about Stonehenge archeology, Andrea Seabrook stated that “archaeologists and anthropologists have theorized that Stonehenge has…”. It is too bad that NPR is not aware that archeology is in fact one of the sub-fields of Anthropology.

    Aside for that blunder, it’s a good story @Archaeologists Seek New Clues at Stonehenge.

    But like Catholics who claim they are “Catholic and not Christian”, Ms. Seabrook has become the unwitting dupe for those few archeologists who seem unwilling to refer to themselves as anthropologists.

    Respectfully,
    -James Mullooly
    An ethnographer who is proud to be considered an anthropologist as well!

  • Deep Quotes: Leonardo da Vinci on Analytic Induction

    Analytic Induction is the hallmark of great ethnography.

    Leonardo da Vinci, the great “pre-Principia natural philosopher” (if you will allow such an figurative appellation) that he was, was well aware of this fact, many years before it existed. Here are some choice quotations I found that illustrate my point.

    Common Sense is that which judges the things given to it by other senses.

    Experience does not err. Only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power.

    He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.

    Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?

    Tags: ,

  • Are Universities Medieval Enclaves?

    Some time ago, John Norvell posted this quote on his blog at anthroblogs.

    A Jesuit theologian, Edward T. Oakes, reviewing Gary Wills’ latest book on the Catholic Church, chides him with this little gem:

    As he should know from his own position as a Catholic professor at a secular university, the two great institutional legacies of the Middle Ages to modern civilization are the Catholic Church and the contemporary university, of which the latter is surely the more rigidly hierarchical: With its politically correct orthodoxies, its hegemonically imposed anti-hegemonic discourse, its salary-mongering, its freedom from taxation (how Constantinian!), its speech codes, its teacher evaluations conducted sub secreto pontificio, its heated debate over the minutest matters, its hair-splitting fights over teaching loads and research assistants (tenure as benefice!), the contemporary university makes the Catholic Church look like a Quaker meeting house.

    I would like to take this a bit further by pointing out that although there were two great institutional legacies of the Middle Ages (the university and the church), there were actually two competing models of university (represented by the Universities of Paris and Bologna): Paris was run by faculty and Bologna was run by students (e.g., grad students had the power and responsibility to fire boring faculty). Imagine if the Bologna model had taken root in stead of the Paris model?

  • Trying to keep my thoughts tame

    Trying to keep my thoughts tame


    There is a deep anthropological joke here: Can anybody guess it?

  • Six million years of bipedalism: Apperently not enough time to learn to stay out of my way?

    Being that I, James Mullooly, am 100% of Irish decent, and being that I live in Fresno, I spent St. Patrick’s Day in San Fransisco. The Bay Area has a long tradition of Irish Immigration that will never be forgotten, no matter how much one drinks!! I blogged about TheAnthroGeek’s St. Patrick’s Day journey to San Fran elsewhere, but my main issue for this entry concerns human conveyance in crowded areas.

    I admit to being a little claustrophobic and having personal space issues. I’ve lived in far more crowded areas than San Fransisco (like Kingston, Cairo, NYC, Bamako), so its not that I cannot handle crowds; rather, it’s that I do not understand them. This is not a good thing for a social scientist to admit to but there you go.

    Being “TheAnthroGeek” that I am, I consulted the great compendium of knowledge that is the glorious field of Anthropology to better understand my predicament. Breaking news out today suggests that we have been walking for far longer than previously assumed. With all this practice we’ve had, you’d think navigating the streets of San Fransisco would be easier. Brian Richmond and William Jungers published their findings in the March 21 issue of Science (link here for an abstract or to today’s US News and World Report for news about it). Common anthropological sense placed hominid bipedalism at around 3.5 million years ago.

    But even though we apparently had an extra few million years practice at walking, we still cannot do it without a great deal of dancing, bumping, apologizing and gazing. Although most may not consider this work, ask someone with agoraphobia about that – it is work, you can call it “social work” or the “work of culture” if you like as long as you look at it as labor. This was the main thing on my mind while jostling/being jostled along the streets of San Fransisco a few days ago.

    Now back in Fresno, a place of wide parking lots, few trees and lots of elbow room, rare is it that I need to do that little minuet required of when two humans share a space too small for their requisite intimacy expectations.

  • St. Patrick’s Day in San Fransisco

    This sensationalized account of TheAnthroGeek’s St. Patrick’s Day in San Fransisco and is photo-fictionalized.

    …Although I do not remember much, I found these photos on my iphone. With them, I’ve stived to piece together TheAnthorGeek’s day in San Fransisco. Select “slide show” for full effect.

    PS. In truth, there is a tech angle here: Tech Tip 38: I’m playing around with ways to tell a story (of something like a trip to San Fransisco for a holiday) via media other than words. I could not load a bunch of photos in this blog so I used the flikr titling of images as a cluncky means to tell that tail.

    With the help of the very cool mapjack software, I’ve been able to map out some of my steps as well.
    TheAnthroGeek started here and entered China Town here.

    Seesmic is a way that one can use little video clips to tell a story as well. I think you have to sign up (for free) to see them but here are clips: before the trip , then during the trip (sorry for the low light) and after the trip

    Although Facebook could do much of this, I don’t want to work with a closed platform like that anymore so here I am.

    I saw something called StoryBlender at the TechCrunch40 site that also looks promising.

  • “Vrtual museology”?

    Now that Anthropology has moved into Second Life, I wonder if there will be a new field to manage this sort of thing? Will they call it, “virtual museology”?

    Blogged with the Flock Browser

  • Entrepreneurs: Are they Ferengi in Disguise?

    Are entrepreneurs actually Ferengi in disguise?

    Ferengi, the sniveling money grubbers of Star Trek (pictured here) seem to me to be motivated by one principle above all else: PROFIT! Conversely, entrepreneurs seem to be motivated by a different principle above all else: VALUE!

    The important question then becomes: Is there any difference between PROFIT and VALUE?

    The people tell us that profit generally refers to the making of gain in business activity for the benefit of the owners of the business. The word comes from Latin meaning “to make progress”. Elsewhere, the people tell us that value, or in this case, “economic value” in something is how much a desired object or condition is worth relative to other objects or conditions. Economic values are expressed as “how much” of one desirable condition or commodity will, or would be given up in exchange for some other desired condition or commodity.

    Adam Smith’s “diamond-water paradox” or “paradox of value” is an effective illustration of economic value. Water is far less valuable than diamonds in the market but it is far more useful to our survival.

    So, you’re in the desert for a week or two with a bag of diamonds and no more water and up walks Gunga Din with a bag of water. Sadly, he turns out to NOT be ‘a better man than you are’ as Kipling had assumed. So Gunga demands the bag of diamonds from you in exchange for the life saving water. Now the value of that water has increased even beyond the current market value of printer ink (NB: Uncle Leo once claimed printer ink to be worth around $5000 a gallon).This brings us to the saving grace of relativity and the power of entrepreneurs’ natural talent for analytic induction. Analytic induction is the very best and most original of the ethnographic skill set. Ethnographers train long and hard to hone this skill whereas many entrepreneurs seem to have it naturally. Analytic induction is often glossed as “thinking out of the box” among entrepreneurs but it is far more than that. How does one think out of the box?

    Ethnomethodologists are very good at thinking out of the box because they are the best observers of social interaction. What makes their method so strong is their unwillingness to trust anything until they have seen it many times. They are so concerned that their own common sense will get the better of them, that they are perpetually trying to avoid the most natural action for all of us – making sense. Some are better at this than others are. There is evidently a knack for this sort of work. The sort of work that, I argue, is very much akin to the knack entrepreneurs have for knowing that something (like personal computers) will be valuable one day.

    In summation, I therefore conclude that entrepreneurs are not Ferengi in disguise! At least not the ones I know.

  • Tech Tip 37: Need StoryTelling software?

    http://www.seesmic.com/

    http://www.mapjack.com/

    http://www.storyblender.com

  • EM/CA Must Join: The International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis

    The International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis

    http://www.iiemca.org/Thanks to Jason for this one