Anthropology & Astronomy or, What do you do when there is only one universe?

For years when I have been asked " And , What do you do (for a living)?" I tell them I am a self employed anthropologist. To which I generally get an expression something like this.

Then I'm asked, "So what? You buy and sell bones?" To which I'll respond that bones and for that matter stones are part of archaeology which is one branch of anthropology. Then I say, "Anthropology is about the study of humanity and how it came to be the dominate species and life form on this planet." For you see, from my point of view, Anthropology is to the social sciences as Astronomy is to the physical science.

I started my college career with plans to be an astronomer and an astronaut (right after Sputnik). A run in with some higher level math pushed me into the social sciences as a major. Anthropology had just been introduced as a major (formally a minor in a soc/anthro department)at Brown. What struck me at the time and what has stayed with me is the similarity between the two fields.

Both are descriptive sciences, not experimental. Both are holistic (you can't get much bigger than the universe and all of the time the universe has existed. In anthropology we are interested in the whole of the history and development of the human species, its distribution, its origin, and its complexities. Both focus on a single entity: the universe as we know vs the planet as we know it. Neither, at the moment has anything to really compare it against.

Astronomy has an evolutionary perspective in its theoretical sister, Cosmology, Cosmology integrates the observations of the observational astronomer with the conclusions and observations of the other physical sciences (chemistry, physics). It looks to these science for clues to explain the observation and it provides a testing ground for their questions.




Anthropology performs a similar role for the human sciences (biology, psychology, and the sociological sciences). We have amassed the greatest collection of observations of human experience in our ethnographies, ethnohistories, and archaeological observations. We have the evolutionary perspective that enables us to expand the boundaries of inquiry back in time as we discover new links and connection between our species and life itself.

We draw upon the discoveries of other social, psychological and life sciences to help explain our observations and these sciences become integrated in a unique way the same as the physical sciences are integrated into Astronomy.

We both have a central concept which helps to explain the order and dynamics of the structures we observe.

For Astronomy it is Gravity.

For Anthropology it is Culture

Finally, for Astronomy the ultimate question is captured in the concept of the BIG BANG and the emergence of the universe. For Anthropology, our Big Bang is the concept of Life and the emergence of Homo sapien.

Nuclear Winter -- Can this be avoided?

Nature has demonstrated what a catastrophic explosion can do to the environment and life on this planet.

According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the eruption of the Tambora Volcano in Indonesia in 1815 lowered global temperatures by as much as 5ºF and historical accounts in New England describe 1816 as “the year without a summer.”

Growing up during the height of the Cold War and learning to "duck and cover" in elementary school. I am fully aware of the dangers of nuclear war not just to the combatants but also to the planet. I remember waiting for the Russian ships to challenge the American blockade of Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis.

While anthropologist, especially archeologist, have studied climate change among "primitive" cultures and extinct civilizations, there has been very little anthropological attention given to the culture of nuclear warfare and the threat it poses to the planet. The threat of volcanoes are natural phenomena; nuclear war is a superorganic threat. Both can have the same effect on the planet. The former is beyond our immediate control, the latter should be under our control.

What does anthropology have to contribute to our understanding of process that leads societies and cultures to embark on a military policy based on nuclear weaponry?

Richard Rhodes has studied the history of nuclear weaponry and the political and military maneuvering associated with it, from the building of the first A Bomb to today's proliferation of nuclear technology.

Rhodes presents one scenario that illustrates the danger facing the planet if a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan were to take place.




This is an example where the insights of anthropology might be applied to help to prevent that one mistake that might bring about the results projected here or in other hot spots such as Israel and Iran, North Korea and the US.

Can anthropologists identifying the socio-cultural forces that might be employed to resolve the outstanding issues that make this scenario a real possibility?

Here is a related resource that gives a perspective of how those charged with the nuclear weaponry have seen their mission during the Cold War period:

How the USAF Envisioned Nuclear War

Second Life and Anthropology

The virtual worlds of the Internet pose an interesting challenge to modern American Anthropology. Comprised of memes in a virtual electronic universe, the Internet is a transorganic organism that is changing how organic human beings and superorganic institutions conduct their relationships. As Internet technology spreads around the planet and as the means for accessing becomes more diverse, powerful and cheaper, it becomes easier for individuals and institution to form, develop, and evolve relationships unconstrained by physical time and space. One of these virtual worlds is Second Life.

Here is an example from the FRONTLINE program Digital Nation showing how IBM (a global superorganic institution) has moved into this new world.

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

The anthropological question is: Is Second Life, a social network or an alternative socio/cultural universe? How does Second Life compare to Facebook as a human enviroment and as a superorganic institution?