Anthropology at WIC

real power of the sociological imagination is found in how you and I learn to distinguish between the personal and social levels in our own lives

C. Wright Mills (1916-1962

neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both"

50 percent of all college students in the country never graduate, we call that a larger social issue.

Does sociology provide personal and larger social insight

Be aware of the three-strike issue

Know which factors you can control

larger social factors that have historically contributed to these patterns

brief spike in divorce after World War II

It was the highest rate of marriages, highest rate of births (The Baby Boom began in 1946

Divorces continue to be high during economic prosperity

ecline during economic hardships.

abundance of single women

urban

enslaved to those force

They still impact you, and you can follow Mill’s ideas and manage as best you can within your power concerning consequences of these forces

we are omnivorous.

same arrangement of internal organs and bones

many of the same diseases

share several important blood types

Unlike apes, our arms are relatively short and weak compared to our legs

modern human brain is 3 times larger in volume

toes became shorter and the big toe moved up into line with the others.

The pelvis

Nature very likely selected for longer legs

downside of the evolutio

we are quite similar to the African apes anatomically and genetically, especially to the chimpanzees and bonobos

46 chromosomes

minor anatomical differences between humans and apes

longer legs require less up-and-down movement while running and, therefore, reduce the amount of energy needed to move rapidly

allow humans to travel farther with the same calorie expenditure

A partial evolutionary solution to this birth difficulty for humans was fetuses being born at a less mature stage, when their bodies are smaller.  The trade off is that human newborn babies are more vulnerable.

Evolving a larger brain comes at a steep energy cost.  The human brain uses about 25% of the energy derived from the nutrients that we consume and 20% of the oxygen.

mental levels equivalent to a 3-4 year old human child

Female chimpanzees, gorillas, and other non-human primates usually remain capable of conception and giving birth even when they are very old

Chimpanzees become sexually mature between the ages of 10 and 13

both have an insatiable appetite for play, are extremely curious, learn through observation and imitation,

The anatomy of the chimpanzee brain and central nervous system is startlingly similar to our own.

Chimpanzees and humans belong to the animal order “primates”

belong to the superfamily hominoid

Chimpanzees and humans belong to the animal order “primates”.

Large brains

opposable thumbs

flexible joints

belong to the superfamily hominoid

chimpanzees and humans share the most similar genetic makeup, sharing 98.6% of our genes.

Females show their first very small sexual swellings at age eight or nine, but are not sexually attractive to the older males until they reach age 10 or 11.

almost every young chimp gets lost from their mother at some point during their exploration.

chimps have a long childhood

Bonds

likely to persist throughout life.

This learning is the means by which certain actions are passed from one generation to the next—the beginnings of culture.

capable of intellectual performances

capable of reasoned thought

memory

symbolic representation

feel and express emotions

chimpanzees can be taught human languages

skills on computers

wide range of complex emotions

possess an almost human-like enjoyment of physical contact, laughter, and community.

chimpanzees can learn from humans

Language is believed to have played a major role:

All of us solve problems effortlessly and routinely.

We want to see our dogs charm us, appeal to our emotions, imagine they too can suffer and have pity, love and hate and all the rest

our brain parts can be replaced with silicon parts

Thousands of scientists and philosophers over hundreds of years have either recognized this uniqueness of ours or have denied it

Even though we have all of these connections with the biologic world from which we came, and we have in some instances similar mental structures, we are hugely different.

Neanderthals, like modern humans, are thought to have arisen on the continent.

Though no fossil evidence has been found for Neanderthals and modern humans coexisting in Africa,

interbreeding occurred just after our species had left Africa

Neanderthals, the study team says, probably mixed with early Homo sapiens just after they'd left Africa but before Homo sapiens split into different ethnic groups and scattered around the globe.

60,000 years ago

It's clearly male-dominated.

matriarchy within the family is very strong

When you watch a young male growing up, all his relationships begin to change. He begins to dominate the females

it's completely amazing how even a fully adult male is usually very respectful of his ancient mother.

And she hears this and she comes charging over, rushes up the tree, and hauls herself on this melee of three enormous males. I think the two others were so amazed that they stopped attacking Satan

Competition

simple

Hair and eye color may be such neutral variations in human beings

variations a

antelope’s speed m

water retention in a desert plant

survive to maturity

favorable variations

passed from generation to generation natural selection.

relationship

simply by looking at it.

“survival of the fittest.”

“Fittest” means that organisms must not only survive to adulthood, they must actually reproduce.

advantageous genetic variations are passed along and become represented with increasing frequency in succeeding generations.

breeding programs.

Canis familiaris

several discipline

The Chihuahua

Saint Bernard

breeding programs.

Artificial selection

the same gene pool

the ability to interbreed and produce fertile offspring.

“man’s best friend.”

20 years

natural selection.

Organisms produce more offspring than the environment can support

still a hard core of people who are very resistant

doing invasive experiments on animals

made a difference with the way the world views chimpanzees

Has it made a difference in the way scientists view them

It's much better to cling to the old ideas that animals are just little machines and they have stimulus and response

It's a communication

sophisticated brains

haven't during evolution developed a sophisticated spoken language

not capable of planning the distant future

can't

discuss an idea

communication is very immediate

Mike learned to use empty kerosene cans because he was very low ranking

He accidentally hit an empty 4-gallon kerosene can and noticed that other chimps ran away

Within 4 months, he'd risen to the top

never saw him fight

Only Mike capitalized on that and developed the technique and won.

"similar patterns of adult mortality,"

a demographic advantage for early modern humans,

it must have been the result of increased fertility and/or reduced immature mortality."

uch capabilities allow humans to enjoy delicious stories with layers of intrigue and gossip,

humans can commonly extend empathy over time and space

exceptions as a mental illness that afflicts humans and animals alike.

obsessive-compulsive disorder sufferers ritualistically act out the same behavior again and again.

apolsky suggested two reasons not to worry

ne of the few differences between humans and chimps comes from the amount of cell division for brain cells

human behaviors stand out by reaching levels of complexity unseen in any other part of the animal world, according to a neurobiologist

What makes humans special comes in no small part from the sheer quantity of available brain power – at least 300,000 brain cells for each neuron in a fruit fly brain.

This is the

Colorism can occur within one’s own community, or across racial and ethnic groups

any other “racial” group.

Our more systematic historical research shows that the importance of skin color on life chances dates back at least to the nineteenth century.

it may emerge as an indirect effect of the person’s ability to take advantage of the higher social status that has accrued over many generations to light-skinned African-Americans

skin tone within a given race or ethnicity is associated with socioeconomic outcomes.

Being dark-skinned has psychological as well as economic, educational, and temporal costs.

“colorism” may be a direct response to the behavior of or, more likely, the appearance of a person standing before the potential employer, judge, or teacher.

people who suffer from discrimination may not protest it because they are unaware of their unfair treatment, because they perceive no alternatives, or because they see no means of effective protest. 

Light-skinned blacks tend to come from families with relatively high status on these dimensions, so skin tone affects educational attainment indirectly.

light- and medium-skinned blacks received shorter sentences for all crimes than the darkest category of blacks.  In every case except property crimes [i.e. for drug, personal, and miscellaneous crimes], the darkest group of blacks received higher sentences, on average, than whites

sentences are 2 percent shorter for light-skinned blacks compared with whites, 4 percent longer for medium-skinned blacks, and 2 percent longer for dark-skinned blacks. Those differences seem small, but 4 percent of a 2,560 day sentence (the average length for whites) is over three months of prison time.

light-skinned African Americans are relatively advantaged in the social and economic arenas,

they have a similar advantage as voters and political actors, and that dark-skinned blacks perceive more discrimination.

Light-skinned blacks may be slightly more likely to perceive discrimination against other members of their race, and they are a little more likely to participate politically.

So why isn’t colorism an issue around which blacks organize politically?

Public opinion in this instance was ill informed, insensitive to some of the most important implications of the tax cuts, and largely disconnected from

a variety of relevant values and material interests

light-skinned blacks as roughly analogous to middle-class Americans – certainly not at the top of the distribution, but enjoying enough benefits from the unfair structure that they would be hesitant to disrupt it too much.

he implication is that dark-skinned blacks ought to perceive that they are doubly maltreated, that skin color hierarchy is just as unfair as the racial hierarchy within which it nests, and that protest is warranted. 

the task is to understand their values on their own terms.

Applying this logic to the case of skin color discrimination yields several hypotheses.  Perhaps dark-skinned blacks are aware of their doubly unfair treatment, but choose to ignore it because they too care more about some other political value, such as racial solidarity or individual autonomy.

Similarly, light-skinned African Americans may recognize,

that “for generations of black people, color and class have been inexorably tied together,” but they too care more about racial solidarity than about either taking advantage of or fighting this internal division. 

in short, one form of unfairness may be worth accepting or ignoring publicly for the sake of fighting another, or simply pursuing some unrelated goal.

The deeply religious, in short, vote their values, not their interests.

At the turn of the twentieth century, both black and white media frequently used “mulatto” (and sometimes “quadroon” and “octoroon”) – sometimes favorably, sometimes unfavorably, but to a surprising degree simply as a common and unremarkable descriptor.

those descriptors were never used or were terms of opprobrium or shock.

one can explain the lack of collective attention to the unfairness of skin tone discrimination by pointing to the dissemination of and allegiance to other, apparently stronger values.

Racial nationalists have traditionally been hostile to black feminists or black Marxists who seek to draw attention to unfair practices within the black community

they are similarly hostile to any discussion of skin color differentiation because it appears to be a strategy of “divide and conquer.

the skills to make a lethal weapon.

Ape Genius - which gives a fascinating insight into the depth of intelligence of animals who share 99 per cent of human genes

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And most important of all although they can imitate, they can't teach or build on the achievements others have made - unlike more successful humans.

But if apes have the power to reaso

n, learn skills, feel emotion and co-operate in a frenzied tree-top hunt for Colobus monkeys as chimpanzees do, why don't we have a planet of the apes?

socio-cultural

two levels

New Media« are media based technically on digitalisation, miniaturisation, data compression, networking and convergence.

current media development

(PCs with multimedia capability, Internet, mobile radio

different levels of Internet use

cultural content

groups and humanity as a whole

Changes in readership and reading behaviour

dramatic changes in reading strategies

reading motivation

example

social sciences

almost general expansion of the concept of culture

a renewed interest in the culture of the individual

between cultural and media development

This makes cross-border movements, interculturalism and hybridisation more important for cultural theory; media development, transnational cultural relationships, intercultural exchange and migration become even more important topics for research.

recent debates

finally the increase in the importance for the understanding of culture of new (or what are perceived as new) cultural communities, groups and contexts.

the current status of the concept of culture in science and politics is not a fashionable phenomenon, but rather »evidence of a significant social development«, a »development from the domination of things to a domination of knowledge«

In dealing with the interactions between the change in concepts of culture and recent media development, the mutually impacting trends of individualisation and cultural globalisation become issues leading to further depths. Both issues are extremely important for the current debate on media development.

individualisation« or »personalisation

media services with a customised nature

economic globalisation

cultural globalisation

show on the one hand that the development of the New Media has aroused (often vague-seeming) fears and hopes, while euphoria over technology and pessimism over culture are relatively evenly divided between the political and social trends. Conversely, there is also the tendency in these debates to pursue older scientific arguments and view the development of the New Media in the context of specific media-historical, social-theoretical or philosophical considerations.

The current crisis in traditional concepts of culture is apparently closely connected with the recent development in the media, as the New Media change the cultural significance of physical proximity and separation