Science Friction_ Where the Known Meets the Unknown - Michael Shermer [55]
That is, in fact, what is being done by a cadre of Chagnon defenders, who have compiled an impressive literature of point-by-point refutations of Tierney’s accusations. Even Chagnon was taken by surprise. “I’ve received a number of e-mails from people identifying themselves on the academic left, who made it clear that while they disagree with me on a number of theoretical points they do not want anything to do with Tierney or his book.”34
Spin-Doctoring Science
In politics, spin-doctoring is the art of interpreting words and actions in a light favorable to one’s position or cause. Spin-doctoring is openly practiced in politics and spin doctors have become star players on politicians’ teams (there was even a television show called Spin City that revolves around a spin doctor played by Michael J. Fox). While spin-doctoring has and does go on in science, ideally we strive for objectivity and we hope that peer review and the other checks and balances that are part of the self-correcting nature of science keep it at a tolerable minimum.
What we are witnessing in this latest battle in the anthropology wars is journalistic spin-doctoring of what is, for the most part, solid science. In carefully reading Good’s Into the Heart and Chagnon’s Yanomamö back to back over the course of several days of intense study, I found myself continually wondering how Tierney could possibly have read both books and come away with the impressions he did, unless this was a clear-cut case of spin-doctoring. The same descriptions of violence, aggression, and especially rape are present in both books; it all depends on the “spin” one puts on the data. For example, Good writes:
I got increasingly upset about Chagnon’s “Fierce People” portrayal. The man had clearly taken one aspect of Yanomami behavior out of context and in so doing had sensationalized it. In the process he had stigmatized these remarkable people as brutish and hateful. I wasn’t fooling myself into thinking that the Yanomami were some kind of Shangri-la race, all peace and light. Far, far from it. They were a volatile, emotional people, capable of behavior we would consider barbaric.35
Well, if the Yanomamö are really “barbaric,” then why is it sensationalistic to call them “brutish”? It all depends on the spin.
Into the Heart is a page-turner because the very features of Yanomamö culture that Chagnon’s critics claim he overemphasizes are, in fact, present in spades in every chapter of Good’s gripping tale. As Chagnon’s graduate student, Good emersed himself in Yanomamöland but in time found himself falling in love with a beautiful young Yanomamö girl named Yarima. (Columbia Pictures bought the rights to produce a dramatic film based on the book, and Good even received a phone call from the actor Richard Gere, who was interested in playing him. That deal has since fallen through and others have shown interest in a film deal, but nothing has come of it to date. Good has avoided commenting publicly about the Tierney-Chagnon controversy, he said, because he doesn’t want his half-Yanomamö children to become the focus of media attention.36)
As the years passed and he had a falling out first with Chagnon and then with the world-renowned ethologist Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Good became emotionally distraught over leaving Yarima alone when he was forced to return to Caracas to renew his permit, or when he was to return to the United States or Germany to attend conferences or work on his doctoral dissertation. Why? When Yarima came of age (defined as first menses in Yanomamöland), she and Good began living together and consummated their “marriage.” (Yanomamö do not have