Watching nova “the violence paradox”. So far one of the most biased and misrepresenting views of aggression and violence I’ve ever seen (18 minutes in).
No anthropologists yet. Lots of Steven Pinker and pretty sure my lengthy interview did not make the cut.
Total misrepresentation of evidence of inter group lethal violence in Pleistocene. Still no anthropologists 25 minutes in and I know they interviewed many
Pinker tells us that States are what initially curtailed violence. But early states still more violent than today
Now really bad “neuroscience” of violence. Sigh. Still no anthropologists even though they refer to “anthropology” as justification a number of times (31 minutes in).
Ok, they did start with Marta Lahr, a bioanthro for one cool segment on Nataruk. But so far that is it
Keep showing Pinker favorite graph of homicide rates decreasing over last mellenia. Now argument that capitalism reduces violence. 35 mins in still just a pitch for Pinker’s views
Ok Miss Manners got airtime before any anthropologist who might contradict this Pinkerian presentation of “reality”
Finally a Tiffiny Tung interview snippet and it is good.
Ok. white historians now telling us the printing press invented equality in the modern world. What?
47 minutes in and it appears that anthropologists have nothing at all to contribute to understanding human nature, aggression and human society.
Oh no! I did make it in and they totally take a quote from me out of context. Making pretty much the opposite point my larger statement made. Aaarrghh.
Oh no! Now they are running with Wranghams domestication hypothesis and arguing testosterone correlates with skull shape. Ugh.
Now argues that testosterone has gone down in males and we can tell it by smaller faces on men. This is just getting worse. Now all Non violence is due to reduced testosterone in men.
Tiffany Tung and I both are allowed to make good points about structural violence ...but then it is sort of blown off.
Well, now it is seeming to be a totally different narrative, a focus on violence issues in Baltimore. Not sure how this is going to all tie up.
last tweet of the thread: In conversations with Doc team I offered specific citations and data to enrich and complexify many of the assumptions undergirding their themes and conclusions. But they were ignored, resulting in yet another misrepresentation of human evolution.
ok, I lied. Two more. Everyone who is actually interested in this topic should read the latest book from @MarcKissel and Nam kim. It is the best and most balanced overview on the subject amazon.com/Emergent-Warfa…
and finally, if you are interested read my review of Pinker's last book, and this topic, here: somatosphere.net/2018/enlighten…
