Anthropology and the Natural Sciences: From subatomic to global systems
20 February 2004
Jonathan Friedman, Lund University and EHESS (GTMS)
Throughout this century there has been a rather interesting series of exchanges between anthropology and the natural sciences. Part of this is related to the structure of the discipline in the United States where physical anthropology, today human biology, was part of a general curriculum along with related subjects such as paleontology, prehistoric archaeology, and even linguistics and cognitive anthropology which had connections to neurology, cognitive science and related subjets. This interest was also present in Europe, of course, and the efforts that led to the initiating of the Centre Royaumont Pour Une Science de l'Homme was an important landmark in the cooperation between biological and social sciences. In the Eighties all of this faded or even turned into conflict. The so-called 'cultural turn', the disinterest in theory and the suspicion of natural sciences became rampant in the United States, and the natural science oriented sections within anthropology departments became increasingly enamored of sociobiology and what some would call genetic reductionism. Human biology was strongly influenced in this period by the emerging field of evolutionary psychology and other genetically oriented approaches. Departments became factionalized in many places between the 'cultural/humanists' and the 'scientists' and instead of dialogue there was war in which tribal identities were more important than understanding and knowledge. With a certain amount of variability the human biologists, cognitivists, and archaeologists tend to group themselves in the science camp, leaving the increasingly postmodernizing cultural and social anthropologists in the humanist camp. The situation today has not improved a great deal and it is a great loss for all involved.
In this presentation I shall try to outline the social and cultural changes involved in this rift which are linked to massive changes in the global system, as well as taking up a selection of issues that I think can be used to remedy the current situation. These issues include questions concerning the interface between social and biological processes, what certain natural scientists, Jacob, Prigogine, Goodwin and others have proposed that bridge some of these unnecessary rifts.