Article ID: CBB001210313

Human Evolution across the Disciplines: Spotlights on American Anthropology and Genetics (2012)

unapi

Sommer, Marianne (Author)


History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences
Volume: 34
Pages: 211--236


Publication Date: 2012
Edition Details: Part of a special issue on the history, philosophy, and social studies of paleoanthropology.
Language: English

When thinking about human evolution across the disciplines, terms such as anthropological genetics or genetic anthropology that brazenly defy the existence of the two-cultures divide seem to promise important insights. They refer to the application of genetic techniques to the past of humankind and human groups, a fact emphasized most strongly by the expression genetic history. Such daring linguistic alliances have been forming since 1962 when the name molecular anthropology was introduced in the American context. This was an opportune moment for biochemists and physical chemists to enter anthropology, because in the U.S. a rapprochement between the fields was aimed for. However, a belief in and a discourse of a hierarchy of disciplines structured along the lines of methodology and epistemic object worked as an obstacle to the achievement of transdisciplinarity. Especially the DNA-sequence, initially approached through the proxy of the protein, was regarded as the most informative historical document due to its distance from the environment and its amenability to rigorous scientific techniques. These notions had a particular power at a time when anthropology was confronted with its legacy of race science. For some, the perceived objectivity of the new molecular approaches and the neutrality of molecules would render anthropology more natural-scientific and by inference less culturally contaminated. Others, to the contrary, believed that this legacy demanded a holistic and ethically reflexive anthropology. The different perceptions thus went along with different understandings of such crucial terms as anthropology and history. In the paper, I revisit interfaces between different anthropological fields in the U.S. context and suggest that the beliefs in a hierarchy of approaches as well as in a nature free from culture embodied in the DNA-sequence has worked as one of the primary obstacles to an integration of these fields.

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Article Delisle, Richard G. (2012) Human Evolution: An Agenda for History, Philosophy, and Social Studies. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences (p. 3). unapi

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001210313/

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Authors & Contributors
Burton, Elise K.
DiMarco, Marina
Germann, Pascal
Yanagisako, Sylvia J.
Weidman, Nadine M.
Segal, Daniel A.
Concepts
Physical anthropology
Science and race
Human genetics
Human evolution
Anthropology
DNA; RNA
Time Periods
20th century
20th century, late
19th century
21st century
Places
United States
Levant and Near East
Yemen
Turkey
Switzerland
Germany
Institutions
UNESCO
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