by Alice Dreger
before Chagnon was even born: For an example, see “Letter from Professor Jane Lancaster,” in Hagen, Price, and Tooby, Preliminary Report, pp. 79–80.
“swashbuckling misogynist”: Open-microphone session, American Anthropological Association, Nov 16, 2000, audio recordings and transcripts. The phrase “swashbuckling misogynist” comes from the remarks of William Vickers.
spreading Ebola around Africa: This claim was made by Omara Ben Abe in his remarks at the open-microphone session, ibid.
Some anthropologists did try to fight back: See John Tooby, “Jungle Fever,” Slate (Oct. 25, 2000), http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_minute/2000/10/jungle_fever.html, and see Hagen, Price, and Tooby, Preliminary Report.
launched a referendum: American Anthropological Association, “Referendum on Darkness in El Dorado & Danger to Immunization Campaign,” adopted Nov. 2003, http://www.aaanet.org/cmtes/ethics.Referendum-on-Darkness-in-El-Dorado-Task-Force.cfm?renderforprint=1.
ratio of 11 to 1: Approximately 14.5 percent of those eligible to vote on this AAA referendum did so: Kimberley Baker, AAA section & governance coordinator, to Alice Dreger, personal e-mail communication, Jan. 4, 2011; quoted in Dreger, “Darkness’s Descent,” 229.
another referendum: American Anthropological Association, “Referendum #3: To Rescind the El Dorado Task Force Report” (2005), http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/05ref_eldorado.htm.
Task Force Report: American Anthropological Association, El Dorado Task Force papers, submitted to the Executive Board as a final report May 18, 2002, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C.: American Anthropological Association, 2002). As noted below, the Report was eventually removed from the AAA Web site but is still available (along with a treasure trove of related documents) at the AnthroNiche Web site of Douglas W. Hume. See http://anthroniche.com.darkness-in-el-dorado/archived-resources/position-statements.html.
ratio of about 2.5 to 1: Approximately 11 percent of those eligible to vote did so; Kimberley Baker, AAA section & governance coordinator, to Dreger, personal e-mail communication, Jan. 4, 2011;quoted in Dreger, “Darkness’s Descent,” 229.
to kill each other: See the remarks by Davi Kopenawa in vol. 2, p. 25, of the Task Force Report.
Chagnon’s story: Interview with Napoleon A. Chagnon, Traverse City, Michigan, Jan. 4–5, 2009; approved version returned Jan. 22, 2009. I asked Napoleon Chagnon to check all personal material about him in this and the next chapter not otherwise included in approved versions of interview notes, and he did so, confirming the material on Oct. 20, 2012.
Chagnon’s 1968 monograph: Napoleon Chagnon, Yanomamö: The Fierce People (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1968).
South American anthropologists: Interview with Napoleon Chagnon, Jan. 4–5, 2009; see also Dreger, “Darkness’s Descent,” 227–28.
Chagnon wrote to Neel: Interview with Napoleon Chagnon, Jan. 4–5, 2009; the letter from Chagnon to Neel and Roche was dated Dec. 2, 1996 (copy provided by Napoleon Chagnon).
YANOMAMA-1968-INSURANCE: Lindee mentioned this folder in her Sept. 21, 2000, letter to colleagues, referenced above.
he had essentially withdrawn the data: See Raymond Hames, “The Political Uses of Ethnographic Description,” in Yanomami: The Fierce Controversy and What We Can Learn from It, ed. Robert Borofsky (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005): 119–35.
Ed Hagen, Michael Price, and John Tooby: See Tooby, “Jungle Fever,” and see Hagen, Price, and Tooby, Preliminary Report.
when Wilson was presenting: This story was recounted to me by Chagnon during our January 4-5, 2009, interview and also by Edward O. Wilson in our telephone interview on Aug. 24, 2009.
AAA meeting in the 1970s: Chagnon also tells this story in Noble Savages: My Life Among Two Dangerous Tribes—the Yanomamö and the Anthropologists (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013), 384.
Margaret Mead and Samoa: Derek Freeman, Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983).
The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: Derek Freeman, The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis of Her Samoan Research (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999).
“in the groves of Academe”: Freeman as quoted in Paul Shankman, The Trashing of Margaret Mead: Anatomy of an Anthropological Controversy (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009), 10.
fiction he had spun as nonfiction: For a complete account of Freeman’s mistreatment of Mead, see Shankman, Trashing.
“collected throughout her fieldwork”: Martin Orans, Not Even Wrong: Margaret Mead, Derek Freeman, and the Samoans (Novato, CA: Chandler & Sharp, 1996), 99.
“from the quicksand of controversy”: Shankman, Trashing, 19.
“over 40% were sexually active”: Paul Shankman, “The ‘Fateful Hoaxing’ of Margaret Mead: A Cautionary Tale,” Current Anthropology 54, no. 1 (Feb. 2013), 51–70; quotation from p. 59.
“address important public issues”: Shankman, Trashing, 108.
“crucial junctures in his argument”: Ibid., 12.
get the informant to turn on Mead: Shankman, “‘Fateful Hoaxing.’”
“these two women in Mead’s field notes”: Ibid., 59.
even to himself: Shankman, Trashing, 60–61.
threatened those who did: Ibid., 38.
“was a Soviet agent”: Ibid., 54.
“but we can’t say it!”: Ibid., 56.
CHAPTER 6: HUMAN NATURES
in anthropology or journalism: See Alice Dreger, “Darkness’s Descent on the American Anthropological Association: A Cautionary Tale,” Human Nature 22 (2011): 225–46.
The Highest Altar: Patrick Tierney, The Highest Altar: The Story of Human Sacrifice (New York: Viking, 1989).
Chicago Public Radio: Interview of Patrick Tierney by Victoria Lautman on WBEZ Chicago (Nov. 22, 2000), transcribed by Valerie Thonger.
previous scholars who had looked: See, e.g., Edward H. Hagen, Michael E. Price, and John Tooby, “Preliminary Report on Darkness in El Dorado,” Department of Anthropology, University of California–Santa Barbara (unpublished, 2001), http://www.angelfire.com/sk2/title/ucsbpreliminaryreport.pdf.
“named Marcel Roche”: Patrick Tierney, Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon (New York: Norton, 2001), 60.
New Yorker article: Patrick Tierney, “The Fierce Anthropologist,” New Yorker, Oct. 9, 2000, 50–61; see p. 57.
article Chagnon had coauthored: James V. Neel, Willard R. Centerwall, Napoleon A. Chagnon, and H. L. Casey, “Notes on the Effects of Measles and Measles Vaccine in a Virgin-Soil Population of South American Indians,” American Journal of Epidemiology 91, no. 4 (1970): 418–29.
Yanomami Warfare: R. Brian Ferguson, Yanomami Warfare: A Political History (Sante Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, 1995).
Ferguson told me: Telephone interview with R. Brian Ferguson, July 28, 2009; corrections received Oct. 1 and 20, 2009.
“important resource for my research”: Tierney, Darkness, xvii.
confirmed in an e-mail: Martins to Dreger, personal e-mail communication, June 5, 2009; quoted in Dreger, “Darkness’s Descent,” 231.
Chagnon had written to Hames: Napoleon A. Chagnon to Raymond Hames, personal e-mail communication, Nov. 6, 1995; quoted with permission in Dreger, “Darkness’s Descent,” 231.
“appear to be deliberately fraudulent”: Hagen, Price, and Tooby, “Preliminary Report,” 1.
Turner was regularly making flight connections: Terence Turner, telephone interview with Alice Dreger, Feb. 4, 2009; approved notes returned Feb. 8, 2009.
Turner acknowledged to me: Ibid.
in part to go after Chagnon: See, e.g., Lêda Leitão Martins, “On the Influence of Anthropological Work and Other Considerations on Ethics,” Public Anthropology: Engaging Ideas, May 27, 2001, http://a
nthroniche.com/darkness_documents/0480.htm.
Martins had publicly taken Chagnon to task: For Martins’s use of the truncated quotation, see Martins, “On the Influence.” For a full translation of the quotation, which originally appeared in the Brazilian magazine Veja, see Robert Borofsky, ed., Yanomami: The Fierce Controversy and What We Can Learn from It (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005), 309.
Salesian missionaries, with whom he had come to blows: These disputes are discussed in Napoleon Chagnon, Noble Savages: My Life Among Two Dangerous Tribes—the Yanomamö and the Anthropologists (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013).
on handout tables at an AAA conference: See Robin Fox, “Evil Wrought in the Name of Good,” Anthropology Newsletter 35 (Mar. 1994): 2; Eric R. Wolf, “Demonization of Anthropologists in the Amazon,” Anthropology Newsletter 35 (Mar. 1994), 2.
distributed by the Salesians: Frank A. Salamone, “Theoretical Reflections on the Chagnon-Salesian Controversy,” in Frank A. Salamone and Walter R. Adams, eds., Explorations in Anthropology and Theology (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1997), 91–112.
“Last Tribes of El Dorado”: Patrick Tierney, “Last Tribes of El Dorado: The Gold Wars in the Amazon Rain Forest” (scheduled for New York: Viking, 1994, apparently never published; page citations are from bound advance uncorrected proofs obtained via interlibrary loan).
Viking wouldn’t give: I discuss this in Dreger, “Darkness’s Descent,” 234.
pass himself off as a Chilean gold miner: Tierney, “Last Tribes,” 29, 75, 87, 88, 131.
carried mercury into the rain forest: Ibid., 71.
illegally purchased a shotgun: Ibid, 71.
without first undergoing appropriate quarantine: Ibid., 172, 181.
without first obtaining the required legal permission: Ibid., 19, 124, 127. Tierney may have felt he was justified in doing this because he seems to have seen FUNAI as hopelessly corrupt; see pp. 182–83, 205, 210.
self-confessed murderers: Ibid., 69, 115, 138, 149, 163, 396.
gotten another man killed: Ibid., 327.
housed, fed, protected, and encouraged by local Roman Catholic priests: Ibid., 30, 50, 120, 216, 229, 231, 234, 272, 297, 298.
Father Saffirio responded: Interview by Alice Dreger of Giovanni Saffirio, Cleveland, July 8, 2009; approved notes received Aug. 12, 2009.
“in Roraima”: Ibid.
“big picture of a fine scholar”: Ibid.
Frechione informed me: Interview by Alice Dreger of John Frechione, Pittsburgh, July 8, 2009; approved notes returned July 30, 2009.
2001 interview with Brandon Centerwall: John Frechione interview of Brandon S. Centerwall, Oct. 27, 2001, http://anthroniche.com/darkness_documents/0102.htm.
Turner had Brandon on record: Regarding the additional supporting evidence from Terence Turner, see Dreger, “Darkness’s Descent,” 232–33.
suggesting that Humbert Humbert: Brandon S. Centerwall, “Hiding in Plain Sight: Nabokov and Pedophilia,” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 32, no. 3 (Fall 1990), 468–84.
I wrote to ask him to confirm: Alice Dreger to Brandon Centerwall, personal e-mail communication, Feb. 11, 2009.
I wrote again five days later: Alice Dreger to Brandon Centerwall, personal e-mail communication, Feb. 16, 2009.
“or sharing it with others”: Brandon Centerwall to Alice Dreger, personal e-mail communication, Feb. 18, 2009.
His four-page letter: Brandon Centerwall to Alice Dreger, personal communication, Feb. 18, 2009, e-mail received Feb. 20, 2009.
teaming up with Andrew Wakefield: Interview by Dreger of Frechione.
University of Pittsburgh: I wrote to the University of Pittsburgh on July 7, 2009. A response came from Kathleen M. Dewalt on July 23, and I answered on July 27. On July 30, Dewalt wrote to say Tierney “is not currently appointed.” I answered on July 31: “Because your message of July 23 used the present tense for Patrick Tierney’s appointment at the Center for Latin American Studies, I take it that the ending date of the appointment can be noted in my work as late July, 2009. . . . I assume also your message means Mr. Tierney no longer has any appointment with the University of Pittsburgh. If I have any of this incorrect, please let me know. If I do not hear from you further, I’ll assume I have these facts right.” Dewalt did not correct my understanding.
Robert Cox: Robert S. Cox, “Salting Slugs in the Intellectual Garden: James V. Neel and Scientific Controversy in the Information Age,” Mendel Newsletter, Feb. 2001, www.amphilsoc.org/mendel/2001.htm#slugs.
Charlie took me down to the stacks: This visit occurred on June 30, 2009. Charles Greifenstein reviewed my draft description of this visit and in reply suggested no changes except perhaps mentioning more of the security aspects of the APS archive (Charles Greifenstein to Alice Dreger, personal e-mail communication, Jan. 26, 2011).
James Neel to Mr. Hobert E. Lowrance: James V. Neel to Hobert E. Lowrance, Mission Aviation Fellowship, Apr. 4, 1968, copy in Neel papers, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.
Thomas Headland had confirmed: See Thomas N. Headland, “When Did the Measles Epidemic Begin Among the Yanomami?” Anthropology News 42, no. 1 (2001), 15–19, www.sil.org/~headlandt/measles1.htm.
Peacock Commission: James Peacock, Janet Chernela, Linda Green, Ellen Gruenbaum, Philip Walker, Joe Watkins, and Linda Whiteford, “Report to Louise Lamphere, President of the American Anthropological Association, and the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association: Recommendation for Investigation of Darkness in El Dorado,” known as the Peacock Report, Jan. 21, 2001, copy provided to me by Raymond Hames, now retrievable at http://anthroniche.com/darkness_documents/0612.pdf.
When Hames resigned: Raymond Hames, “My Resignation Letter” (from El Dorado Task Force), 2002, http://anthroniche.com/darkness_documents/0514.htm; Raymond Hames telephone interview with Alice Dreger, June 23, 2009; approved version returned July 6, 2009.
They had so rushed it: Peacock et al., “Peacock Report,” 3: “In order to meet the deadline of January 22 for circulation of reports to the Executive Board, this report is submitted without explicit approval by all members of the Task Force of this final draft.”
Trudy Turner told me: Trudy R. Turner, telephone interview with Alice Dreger, Aug. 24, 2009; approved version returned Sept. 16, 2009.
Janet Chernela: Janet Chernela, telephone interview with Alice Dreger, Aug. 10, 2009, approved notes returned Aug. 15, 2009.
Yanomamö spokesperson who claimed: This is discussed in Dreger, “Darkness’s Descent,” 239.
Jane Hill: Jane Hill, telephone interview with Alice Dreger, July 15, 2009; approved version received July 16, 2009.
“I don’t remember the circumstances”: Ibid.
batch of photocopies: Obtained via e-mail from Sarah Hrdy, Nov. 6, 2009.
gave me permission: Hill provided permission via e-mail to me on Nov. 6, 2009.
“Burn this message”: Jane Hill to Sarah Hrdy, personal e-mail communication, Apr. 15, 2002; used with permission. Also reproduced in Dreger, “Darkness’s Descent,” 237.
Louise Lamphere: I note in Dreger, “Darkness’s Descent,” 240, that “I asked Lamphere to confirm or deny this on the record, and she has not.”
“disagreed with their theoretical bent”: Francesca Bray to Alice Dreger, personal e-mail communication, Oct. 9, 2009, used with permission.
HBES meeting: Alice Dreger, “Darwin’s Dangerous Critics: Evolutionary Biology and Identity Politics in the Internet Age,” paper presented at annual meeting, Human Behavior and Evolution Society, California State University–Fullerton, May 30, 2009.
At UCSB: See Hagen, Price, and Tooby, Preliminary Report.
University of Michigan: See Nancy Cantor, “Statement from University of Michigan Provost Nancy Cantor on the Book, Darkness in El Dorado, by Patrick Tierney,” Nov. 13, 2000, http://ns.um
ich.edu/Releases/2000/Nov00/r111300a.html.
Chuck Roselli: See John Schwartz, “Of Gay Sheep, Modern Science and Bad Publicity,” New York Times, Jan. 25, 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/science/25sheep.html.
twenty thousand e-mails: This account is based in part on interviews with Roselli and Newman: Charles Roselli, telephone interview with Alice Dreger, Nov. 5, 2008, approved notes received Nov. 8, 2008; Jim Newman, telephone interview with Alice Dreger, Oct. 23, 2008, approved notes received Nov. 8, 2008. Roselli and Newman also reviewed a draft of this section on Oct. 11, 2012, and agreed the representation is accurate.
“defend researchers this way”: Interview with Newman.
“‘back to work’”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 7: RISKY BUSINESS
promoting a high-risk drug regimen: See Alice Dreger, Ellen K. Feder, and Anne Tamar-Mattis, “Prenatal Dexamethasone for Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia: An Ethics Canary in the Modern Medical Mine,” Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 9, no. 3 (2012): 277–94. For examples of New’s clinic’s promotion of the intervention, see “Prenatal Diagnosis and Treatment of Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia,” Maria New Children’s Hormone Foundation, www.newchf.org/testing.php (accessed July 30, 2014). See also Elizabeth Kitzinger, “Prenatal Diagnosis & Treatment for Classical CAH,” CARES Foundation Newsletter 2, no. 1 (Winter 2003): 15, www.caresfoundation.org/productcart/pc/news_letter/winter02-03_page_9.htm. See also the discussion of Maria New’s 2001 presentation below.
Dr. Maria New: See “Biography: Dr. Maria Iandolo New,” at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine/physicians/biography_234.html.
recommend the intervention: See, for example, Kitzinger, “Prenatal Diagnosis,” and the discussion of New’s 2001 presentation below. The CARES (Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia Research, Education & Support) Foundation has also enabled New’s promotion of prenatal dexamethasone for CAH by, for example, posting New’s biography calling hers “the only large center that provides prenatal diagnosis of CAH and prenatal treatment of affected females to prevent genital ambiguity,” at www.caresfoundation.org/productcart/pc/scientific_medical.html.