Science Friction_ Where the Known Meets the Unknown - Michael Shermer [54]
And despite the mountains of data Chagnon has accumulated on Yanomamö aggression, he was careful to note throughout his lecture the many other behaviors and emotions expressed by the Yanomamö: “When I called the Yanomamö the ‘fierce people,’ I did not mean they were fierce all the time. Their family life is very tranquil. Even though they have high mortality rates due to violence and aggression and competition is very high, they are not sweating fiercely, eating fiercely, belching fiercely, etc. They do kiss their kids and are quite pleasant people.”30
Even in the question-and-answer period, when given the opportunity to make his case for an extreme sociobiological view of humans to an obviously receptive audience dominated by older males who encouraged such answers with leading questions, Chagnon gently but firmly demurred. One gentleman inquired whether Chagnon thought that his data implied there might be genes for violence that are passed down to future generations by the unokais, and whether this implied that perhaps all human violence is innate. Chagnon unhesitatingly answered in the negative: “No, I do not think violence is that directly connected to specific genes, although there is undoubtedly a biological substrate underlying violence. Violence is a facultative trait. You have to look at the environmental cues to see what touches it off. Because they are an inbred population we can expect that Yanomamö genes are different from other populations, but I do not think that they are any different genetically from other populations in terms of violence.”31
In light of his data on warriors who are rewarded with more wives, one questioner wondered what happens to the men who get no wives, and if this means that the Yanomamö are polygamous. Chagnon explained that, indeed, some Yanomamö men have no wives and that it is often they who are the causes of violence as they either resort to rape or stir up trouble with men who have more than one wife. But he added an important proviso that indicates, once again, Chagnon’s sensitivity to the nuances and complexities within all cultures, and the danger of gross generalizations: “Anthropologists tend to pigeonhole societies as monogamous or polygamous or polyandrous, as if these are three different kinds of societies. In fact, you have to look at marriage as a life-historical process in all societies. There are, for example, cases of monogamy in Yanomamö society. In fact, monogamy is the most common type of marriage. But there are also polyandrous families where one woman marries two men, who tend to be brothers. There are, in fact, examples of all three types of marriage arrangements in Yanomamö culture.”32
Even at work Chagnon refrains from oversimplifying his research. I asked anthropologist Donald Symons, Chagnon’s colleague from the University of California, Santa Barbara, about the accusations that Chagnon is a sociobiological ideologue bent on painting a portrait of humanity as self-centered, competitive, and violent. Symons replied: “You know, it’s interesting that people make such charges against Nap, because when you ask him about this or that aspect of the Yanomamö he never just offers some simple opinion. He’ll says things like ‘I think I can get that data for you,’ or