Darkness in El Dorado
Darkness in El Dorado (subtitled: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon) is a book written by author Patrick Tierney in 2000 that accuses geneticist James Neel and anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon of exacerbating a measles epidemic among the Yanomamo people of the Amazon Basin and conducting human research without regard for their subjects' wellbeing.
Chagnon had long been well known within anthropological circles for having identified the Yanomami as the "world's most violent people" and generating a great deal of interest in their culture.
The book was nominated for a National Book Award. Its publication provoked scandal, outrage and public hearings, and has been a source of significant academic controversy. These allegations have also been explored in the recent documentary film Secrets of the Tribe by Brazilian director José Padilha and in a peer-reviewed publication by Alice Dreger, an historian of medicine and science, and an outsider to the debate, who concluded that Tierney's claims were "baseless and sensationalistic charges".[1]
Contents |
[edit] Claims
- That Napoleon Chagnon and James Neel directly and indirectly caused a genocide in the region through the introduction of a live virus measles vaccine.
- That the whole Yanomami project was an outgrowth and continuation of the Atomic Energy Commission's secret program of experiments on human subjects.
- That Chagnon's account of the Yanomami are based on false, non-existent or misinterpreted data, and that Chagnon actually incited violence among them.
- That French researcher Jacques Lizot, protégé of anthropology icon Claude Lévi-Strauss, engaged in sex acts with Yanomamo boys (including oral and anal sex, as well as having the boys masturbate him).
- That Kenneth Good married a Yanomami girl who was barely entering her teens.
[edit] Investigation
![[icon]](/wiki/File:Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg){kind=small} |
This section requires expansion. |
The American Anthropological Association has since made stern statements concerning the proper conduct for anthropologists in the field. The book was examined and many of Tierney's claims challenged by various panels of historians, epidemiologists, anthropologists, and filmmakers who had direct knowledge of the events soon after its publication.
A detailed investigation of these charges by a panel set up by the University of Michigan found the most serious charges to have no foundation and others to have been exaggerated. Sponsel and Turner, the two scientists who originally touted the book's claims, admitted that their charge against Neel "remains an inference in the present state of our knowledge: there is no 'smoking gun' in the form of a written text or recorded speech by Neel."[2] Alice Dreger, an historian of medicine and science, and an outsider to the debate, concluded after a year of research that Tierney's claims were false and the American Anthropological Association was complicit and irresponsible in helping spread these falsehoods and not protecting "scholars from baseless and sensationalistic charges"[3].
[edit] References
- ^ Dreger, Alice (16 February 2011). "Darkness’s Descent on the American Anthropological Association". Human Nature 22 (3): 225–246. doi:10.1007/s12110-011-9103-y.
- ^ John Tooby, "Jungle Fever: Did two US scientists start a genocidal epidemic in the Amazon or was The New Yorker duped? Slate, October 24th, 2000.
- ^ Dreger, Alice (16 February 2011). "Darkness’s Descent on the American Anthropological Association". Human Nature 22 (3): 225–246. doi:10.1007/s12110-011-9103-y.
[edit] External links
- Darkness in El Dorado at Google Books
- Darkness in El Dorado at Amazon.com
- A comprehensive repository of links to relevant documents compiled by Douglas Hume
- Various perspectives on the American Anthropological Association's referendum to rescind the findings of its El Dorado Task Force
- Chapter One of Darkness in El Dorado (requires login)
