Science is a Western form of knowledge production and can be divided into three forms: 1) science as a set of methods for investigating the world we inhabit, 2) the pool of knowledge containing the data and conclusions drawn by science, and 3) a social institution through which empirical studies of the world are carried…
Tag: philosophy
Decolonizing Primatology: Part I
We all have texts that are formative in our academic, professional, spiritual, personal, mental, and philosophical lives. There are a few books that I can point to as turning points in my intellectual life. For example, Orientalism by Edward Said, Le Suicide by Émile Durkheim, Purity and Danger by Mary Douglas, Why I’m Not a Scientist by Jon Marks are all…
Populations, Race, and The Sorites Paradox
The sorites paradox (also called the paradox of the heap) refers to a particular logical contradiction that arises from the analysis of vague terms (Sainsbury, 2009). Terms like ‘heap’, ‘bald’, ‘tall’ all fall into this category. We know a tall or bald person when we see one but what are the necessary and sufficient conditions…
Fall Semester, 2018 Courses
I am very excited to have three new preps for Fall, 2018. Course overviews are below. LBST 2213: Now this is not a new prep as I have been teaching it for two years now. In the catalog it is listed as Science, Technology, and Society. I teach the course as an anthropology of science…
The Paradox of Hyper-connectedness and Solipsism in Contemporary America
Try walking around the mall, on a crowded sidewalk, or through a university campus and there is one thing that stands out: people are engulfed in their phones. Whether they are moving from point A to B or simply hanging out, many people rarely ever look up from their screens. Parents of teenagers know this…
The Personhood and Rights of Apes
I spent the earliest part of my career as an anthropologist studying captive chimpanzees at the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro, NC. While there, I always made a concerted effort to engage with zoo-goers while performing focal animal sampling (studying juvenile time budgeting and play behavior). If you’ve done any primate behavioral ecology, you will…
