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Darkness in El Dorado

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Darkness in El Dorado: 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, among other allegations, of exacerbating a measles epidemic among the Yanomamo people of the Amazon Basin and conducting human research without regard for their subjects' well-being while conducting long-term ethnographic field work among the Yanomamö, a society of indigenous tribal Amazonians that live in the border area between Venezuela and Brazil.[1]

While being initially positively reviewed and well received, later investigations by multiple independent organizations found the main allegations in the book to be false and libelous.

Major Claims and later consensus after investigations

Claims made in Darkness in El Dorado included:

  • That Napoleon Chagnon and James Neel directly and indirectly caused a genocide in the region through the introduction of a live virus measles vaccine. This claim has been refuted.
  • That the whole Yanomami project was an outgrowth and continuation of the Atomic Energy Commission's secret program of experiments on human subjects. This claim has also been refuted.
  • That Chagnon's account of the Yanomami are based on false, non-existent or misinterpreted data, and that Chagnon actually incited violence among them. Related claims and issues have been the subject of much academic and ethical debate.
  • That French researcher Jacques Lizot, a protégé of Claude Lévi-Strauss extorted sexual favors from Yanomamo boys (including oral, anal and masturbatory acts) after introducing shotguns into the community.
  • That Kenneth Good married a Yanomami girl who was barely entering her teens. Good's own autobiographical accounts describe a complex personal relationship experienced in the context of Yanomamo (as well as American) cultural norms. He recounts that, in keeping with local customs and community wishes, he was betrothed to his future wife when she was still a child, and later consummated the marriage when she was aged about 15 or 16.[2]

Assessments

In 2000, Tierney published Darkness in El Dorado, which accused geneticist James Neel and anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon of exacerbating a measles epidemic among the Yanomamo people, among other damning allegations. This work initially received good reviews and was nominated for a National Book Award. Tierney's accusations against anthropologist Chagnon were accepted as fact by the New York Times book reviewer John Horgan and the political storm it spawned eventually helped prompt Chagnon's early retirement.[3][4] However, at least one reviewer, John Tooby, saw the book as a work as internally inconsistent and that it should have been in the fiction category.[5]

Several inquiries regarding the veracity of Tierney's allegations against Neel and Chagnon in Darkness in El Dorado were conducted by the American Anthropological Association (AAA) and outside evaluators. Tierney's book was condemned by a number of academic researchers and professional associations, including the National Academy of Sciences,[6] and the American Society of Human Genetics,[7] The ultimate conclusion was that the allegations made by Tierney against Neel and Chagnon were fraudulently presented.

Tierney's charges against Neel and Chagnon were initially investigated by the Peacock Commission, later known as the El Dorado Task Force, formed by the AAA. It supported Tierney and questioned the conduct of Neel and Chagnon; its findings were accepted by the AAA board in May 2002.[8]

Because of dissension within the organization, the AAA subsequently requested an outside investigative team, which determined in a preliminary report that the "book appears to be deliberately fraudulent", and that "Patrick Tierney has misconstrued or misrepresented his primary sources to a considerable degree in an effort to support his allegations."[9] The investigators concluded it was not Chagnon who committed any wrongdoing, but Tierney, who fraudulently altered evidence to support a story he either at best imagined or at worst manufactured.

In 2004 Thomas A. Gregor and Daniel R. Gross published their investigation of the AAA's behavior,[10] and in 2005 called for the membership of the AAA to rescind the organization's support of the book. It passed overwhelmingly, 846 to 338.[11]

A detailed investigation of Tierney's 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. Almost all of the lengthy allegations made in Darkness in El Dorado were publicly rejected by the Provost's office of the University of Michigan in November 2000.[12] 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." 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 AAA was complicit and irresponsible in helping spread these falsehoods and not protecting "scholars from baseless and sensationalistic charges".[8]

The AAA has since rescinded its support of the book and acknowledged fraudulent and improper and unethical conduct by Tierney. The association admitted that "in the course of its investigation, in its publications, in the venues of its national meetings and its web site, [the AAA] condoned a culture of accusation and allowed serious but unevaluated charges to be posted on its website and expressed in its newsletter and annual meetings" and that its "report has damaged the reputations of its targets, distracted public attention from the real sources of the Yanomami tragedy and misleadingly suggested that anthropologists are responsible for Yanomami suffering".[11]

The accusations of medical improprieties contained in Tierney's book were investigated by the Medical Team of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and found to be false.[13]

Since the controversy over Darkness in El Dorado, Tierney's profile has been low and he has rarely appeared in public to defend it.[14]

References

  1. ^ Silva, Stacey (1988-01-20). "Meeting The Fierce People" (PDF). The Daily Nexus. Retrieved 2008-10-23. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  2. ^ [Audio broadcast about Good, his Yanomamo wife and his son]
  3. ^ Horgan, John (November 12, 2000). "Hearts of Darkness". New York Times. Retrieved 14 March 2013.
  4. ^ Chagnon, Napolean (20132). Noble Savages. ISBN 978-0684855103. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)
  5. ^ 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.
  6. ^ Alberts, Bruce (November 9, 2000). "Setting the Record Straight Regarding Darkness in El Dorado - A Statement from Bruce Alberts, President of the National Academy of Sciences". Anthropological Niche of Douglas W. Hume. Retrieved 17 March 2013.
  7. ^ American Society of Human Genetics (2002). "Response to Allegations against James V. Neel in Darkness in El Dorado, by Patrick Tierney". The American Journal of Human Genetics. 70 (1): 1–10. doi:10.1086/338147. Retrieved 17 March 2013. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  8. ^ a b 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. {{cite journal}}: External link in |title= (help)
  9. ^ "Preliminary report: The major allegations against Napoleon Chagnon and James Neel presented in Darkness in El Dorado by Patrick Tierney appear to be deliberately fraudulent" (PDF).
  10. ^ Gregor, Thomas A. (1 December 2004). "Guilt by Association: The Culture of Accusation and the American Anthropological Association's Investigation of Darkness in El Dorado" (PDF). American Anthropologist. 106 (4): 687–698. doi:10.1525/aa.2004.106.4.687. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  11. ^ a b "AAA Rescinds Acceptance of the El Dorado Report". American Anthropological Association. 2005. Retrieved 30 August 2013.
  12. ^ "Statement from University of Michigan Provost Nancy Cantor on the book "Darkness in El Dorado"".
  13. ^ Report of the Medical Team of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro on Accusations Contained in Patrick Tierney's Darkness in El Dorado
  14. ^ David Glenn; Thomas Bartlett (December 3, 2009). "Rebuttal of Decade-Old Accusations Against Researchers Roils Anthropology Meeting Anew". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 14 March 2013.

Sources

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