Synopses & Reviews
"Highly readable and informative, this critical series of vignettes illustrates a long history of the corruption of science by folk beliefs, careerism, and sociopolitical agendas. Marks repeatedly brings home the message that we should challenge scientists, especially molecular geneticists, before we accept their results and give millions of dollars in public and private funds toward their enterprises."Russell Tuttle, The University of Chicago
Jonathan Marks has produced a personal and compelling story of how science works. His involvement in scientific endeavor in human biology and evolution over the past three decades and his keen sense of the workings of science make this book a must read for both scientists and lay readers. In this sense, the lay reader will learn how scientists should and shouldn't think and some scientists who read this book will come away thinking they are truly not scientists nor would they want to be.”Rob DeSalle, American Museum of Natural History
Jonathan Marks's Why I Am Not a Scientist provides food for thought, and as expected, it's digestible. In unusually broad perspective, this anthropology of knowledge considers science and race and racism, gender, fraud, misconduct and creationism in a way that makes one proud to be called a scientist.”George J. Armelagos, Emory University
Review
“Lively and forcefully written book.” Journal Royal Anthro Inst
Review
"This book is well written, interesting, and establishes the broad context of knowledge."--Qtly Review of Biology
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“This book is well written, interesting, and establishes the broad context of knowledge.” R. Paul Thompson
Synopsis
This lively and provocative book casts an anthropological eye on the field of science in a wide-ranging and innovative discussion that integrates philosophy, history, sociology, and auto-ethnography. Jonathan Marks examines biological anthropology, the history of the life sciences, and the literature of science studies while upending common understandings of science and culture with a mixture of anthropology, common sense, and disarming humor. Science, Marks argues, is widely accepted to be three things: a method of understanding and a means of establishing facts about the universe, the facts themselves, and a voice of authority or a locus of cultural power. This triple identity creates conflicting roles and tensions within the field of science and leads to its record of instructive successes and failures. Among the topics Marks addresses are the scientific revolution, science as thought and performance, creationism, scientific fraud, and modern scientific racism. Applying his considerable insight, energy, and wit, Marks sheds new light on the evolution of science, its role in modern culture, and its challenges for the twenty-first century.
Synopsis
What do we think about when we think about human evolution? With his characteristic wit and wisdom, anthropologist Jonathan Marks explores our scientific narrative of human originsand#151;evolutionand#151;and examines its cultural elements and theoretical foundations. In the process, he situates human evolution within a general anthropological framework and presents it as a special case of kinship and mythology.
Tales of the Ex-Apes makes a strong case that human evolution cannot be reduced to purely biological properties and processes given that it has incorporated the emergence of social relations and cultural histories that are unprecedented in the apes. Marks contends that human evolution over the past few million years has involved the transformation from biological to biocultural evolution. Over tens of thousands of years, new social rolesand#151;notably, spouse, father, in-laws, and grandparentsand#151;have co-evolved with new technologies and symbolic meanings to produce the human species, in the absence of significant biological evolution. We are biocultural creatures, Marks argues, fully comprehensible by recourse to neither our real ape ancestry nor our imaginary cultureless biology.
Synopsis
"In this truly excellent book that simply brims with scholarship, Marks convincingly showsand#151;clearly, pithyly, wittilyand#151;why scientific reductionism is a tool, not an explanation. DNA is not a blueprint, and we have a long way to go before we truly understand how genes and environments combine to make us what we are today."and#151;Robert Martin, Professor of Biological Anthropology at the University of Chicago, Curator Emeritus at The Field Museum, and author of
How We Do It: The Evolution and Future of Human Reproduction "Within the field of biological anthropology, there is no one who is able to contextualize scientific information like Jon Marks. Only Marks is able to successfully take evolutionary 'facts' and situate them within the broader spheres of history, science, philosophy, and the humanities."and#151;Libby Cowgill, University of Missouri
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About the Author
Jonathan Marks is Professor of Anthropology at University of North Carolina at Charlotte and the author of What It Means to Be 98% Chimpanzee: Apes, People, and their Genes.
Table of Contents
Preface
1. Science as a Culture and as a Side”
2. The Scientific Revolution
3. Normative Science
4. Science as Practice
5. The Problem of Creationism
6. Bogus Science
7. Scientific Misconduct
8. The Rise and Fall of Colonial Science
9. Racial and Gendered Science
10. Nature/Culture
Notes
Index