It is well established among those who carry out, analyze, and report pre-employment performance testing that slope-based bias in those tests is rare. Why is this important? Look at the following three graphs from a recent study by Aguinis, Culpepper and Pierce (2010):
Tag Archives: Anthropology
Barry Glassner, Fear, Poor people and their babies: Friday!
I’ve been interested forever in human perceptions of risk and culturally mediated fear. I got to work with some of the cook risk perception people at the Kennedy School of Government for a while (as a bystander), and as an archaeologist, I find the question of risk and fear important in human foraging (and other) decisions. For instance, humans can specialize or not as foragers, and they can include or exclude certain kinds of resources. Did early humans in southern Africa avoid dangerous bovid prey and prefer allegedly less dangerous antelopes? Did various groups that avoid fishing (East African pastorals and, of course the Tasmanians) do so for any reasons related to risk? And so on.
Continue reading Barry Glassner, Fear, Poor people and their babies: Friday!
Sociosexually, what is “safe”?
Are you a “safe guy”? Or do you know someone who (you or he or some else thinks) is?
Stephanie Zvan has written about this at Quiche Moraine, and I think I might have been living in a different world than Stephanie’s because my experience has always been that the attribute of “safeness” is a negotiated one, and it has not always been about “safe guys” but also “gals.”
Perhaps this is an East Coast vs. Midwestern/Plains thing, or, perhaps the difference is that we field scientists can spend months at a time (rather than hours now and then) dealing with this issue. There is a difference between a “safe guy” tagging along with the gal to which he is safe while she shops for panties at Victoria’s Secret, and being thrown into a situation where the custom is that everyone bathes (for safety reasons) at the same spot daily and clothing is not an option. Or you share a tent for a week with someone of the opposite sex. Or you are arrested and tossed in a jail together for 24 hours. For instance.
Anyway, go read the post and see if your experiences are more like hers or more like mine, and don’t forget to leave a comment!
A run in my stocking is not a worn out salmon: Response to Mark Liberman
I’m very please that my discussion of the “we can’t ever know what a word is” Internet meme has elicited a response from Mark Liberman at Language Log. (here) Mark was very systematic in his comments, so I will be very systematic in my responses.
Continue reading A run in my stocking is not a worn out salmon: Response to Mark Liberman
The Actual Four Stone Hearth Blog Carnival
And now, it is time for the April 1st edition of Four Stone Hearth, the four field Anthropological Blog Carnival.
Our first submission is from Somatosphere, a blog about Science, Medicine and Anthropology, and it is about the discover of Big Foot in the Poconos Mountains of Pennsylvania! No kidding, this time they REALLY FOUND BIG FOOT. Click here to read about bigfoot.
Our next installment is from the blog Seeing Race, and is live blog coverage of a recent investigation into the Burbank TV studio that was used in the Faking of the Apollo 11 moon Landing! Seriously! CLICK HERE
to find out about how they faked the moon landing! No kidding!
Then, we have, from The Primate Diaries, we have a report of the first successful hybridization of a Human and a Chimpanzee! The amazing thing is that the hybrid now has a blog on Scienceblogs.com called “Living in Uncanny Valley.” Seriously. Read about it here!
And now, finally, proof that leprechauns exist! No kidding! THEY REALLY DO, CLICK HERE!!!11!!
Time traveling tells us about an anthropological field school where everyone went to Mars and saw Elvis. No kidding. CLICK THIS LINK AND BELIEVE!
Anthropologist Underground presents evidence of the once thought to be apocryphal Hot Headed Naked Mole Rat of the Antarctic. Seriously, no kidding! CLICK HERE!
And Aardvark Archaeology has excavated a site that demonstrates that the Pyramids were built by SPACE ALIENS!!!!!
April Fools!!!!
Somatosphere: An An interview with Marcia Inhorn.
Seeing Race is a new blog that you should pay attention to, and the current post (but they are all of interest) is Lady Instructors Suffers For You
The Primate Diaries: Cultural Transmission in Chimpanzees
Anthropology in Practice: The Irish Diaspora: Why Even Trinidadians Are a Little Irish
Time Traveling: On Anthropology Field Schools . Also, A Visit to the Market and Some Baybay Memories
Anthropologist Underground: (Sub)Culture Shock! Part II
Aardvark Archaeology: Ritual and Rationality
The four stone heath blog carnival site is here. No kidding. And, the next edition is schedules for a Hot Cup of Joe. I am not making this up.
Please visit all the sites, Stumble on them, Digg them, and post them on your Facebook Page if you love Anthropology. Or even if you only kinda like Anthropology. Or,like most Anthropologists, if you tolerate anthropology enough that you don’t kill it when you see it. Usually.
Chimpanzee Food Sharing
Is chimpanzee food sharing an example of food for sex?
One of the most important transitions in human evolution may have been the incorporation of regular food sharing into the day to day ecology of our species or our ancestors. Although this has been recognized as potentially significant for some time, it was probably the Africanist archaeologist Glynn Isaac who impressed on the academic community the importance of the origins of food sharing as a key evolutionary moment. At that time, food sharing among apes was thought to be very rare, outside of mother-infant dyads. Further research has shown that it is in fact rare … the vast majority of calories consumed by human foragers in certain societies and at certain times of the year comes from a sharing system, while the fast majority of calories consumed by chimpanzees is hand to mouth without sharing.
Continue reading Chimpanzee Food Sharing
The corporation = one of the best documentaries ever.
I first watched The Corporation
when it was first shown around, at the Minneapolis Film Fest, with the producers and the director. The Corporation
could be termed a forensic personality profile of the American Corporation, but I viewed it as an insightful ethnography of the most important tribe to emerge in human history. The most important, and the most dangerous tribe. In fact, I showed The Corporation as an ethnography in my anthropology classes a number of times.
Here is Part I:
Continue reading The corporation = one of the best documentaries ever.
Cultural Preservation: The Blue Shield
Corine Wegener interviewed by Scott Lohman
Silence = Death
I have been to Uganda a number times, but only illegally or by accident, in which case I was in the remote bush, or in transit, stopping at Entebbe Airport, so I can’t say that I know much, directly, about the culture there. However, I have spent months in Kenya and years in Zaire/Congo, and a little time in Tanzania and Rwanda, so I’ve kinda got Uganda surrounded. I can tell you that the political culture and government of Zaire/Congo, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda are very, very different from one another. At the same time, all of these countries have certain commonalities that are relevant to the present discussion, and I’d bet money that these extend to some degree into Uganda. They are:
Continue reading Silence = Death
Culture Shapes How We Look at Faces
Constructivism. Determinism. It is all a bunch of hooey.
A recent paper published by PLoS (Culture Shapes How We Look at Faces) throws a sopping wet blanket on widely held deterministic models of human behavior. In addition, the work underscores the sometimes spooky cultural differences that can emerge in how people see things, even how people think.
Cultural Evolution from Mosquitos to Worm Grunting
Strictly speaking the worm grunters of Florida is not an example of gene-culture interaction, as far as I know. But this case study serves as a starting point for a discussion of how traits that “make sense” arise even though the rise of said traits does not necessarily “make sense.”
Continue reading Cultural Evolution from Mosquitos to Worm Grunting
The Bible in Translation
Watch Humanist Views: Humanism and the Bible in Activism & Non-Profit | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
The Hurricane Lantern Effect
This is for all your nascent researchers about to head off to remote places to engage in your very first fieldwork, and for all you eco-tourists or educational travelers about to embark on a trip through strange lands afar.
The Roman Polanski Drama: “Then” vs. “Now” effects.
The Roman Polanski story has certainly gotten interesting. Well, actually, the story is still only mildly interesting, but the discussion about it has developed in interesting ways. So, I thought I’d muddy the waters by throwing in a few thoughts.
Continue reading The Roman Polanski Drama: “Then” vs. “Now” effects.
Primitive Cultures are Simple, Civilization is Complex (A falsehood) III
This is the third of three parts of this particular falsehood. (Here is the previous part)
Continue reading Primitive Cultures are Simple, Civilization is Complex (A falsehood) III