Word: anthropologists
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...great anthropologist and philosopher Gregory Bateson pointed out 20 years ago that this myriad of feedback circuits resemble the mathematical models of thinking being developed for the new science of artificial intelligence. A forest or a coral reef or a whole planet, then, with its checks and balances and feedback loops and delicate adjustments always striving for light and equilibrium, is like a mind. In this way of thinking, pollution is literal insanity (Bateson was also a psychologist). To dump toxic waste in a swamp, say, is like trying to repress a bad thought or like hitting your wife every...
...duck administration of Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita at a critical moment in U.S.-Japan relations. Says an official in the Foreign Ministry: "We have a first-rate economy, a second-rate standard of living and third-rate politicians." But the Japanese are beginning to look for stronger leadership. Cultural anthropologist Masao Kunihiro says that during a recent lecture tour he found voters "increasingly becoming aware of international affairs"; eventually, he suggests, "they will choose more genuinely international minded politicians...
...richly elastic, but little in this rapid life-style conspires to stretch them. In fact the reverse is true, as TV commercials shrink to 15- second flashes and popular novels contain paragraphs no longer than two sentences. "I do things in a lot of 3 1/2-minute segments," muses UCLA anthropologist Peter Hammond. "Experience just sort of rolls by me. I think it affects the quality of my work...
More ominous are the effects on children. "Making an appointment is one way to relate to your child," says UCLA anthropologist Hammond, "but it's pretty desiccated. You've got to hang around with your kids." Yet hanging-around time is the first thing to go. The very culture of children, of freedom and fantasy and kids teaching kids to play jacks, is collapsing under the weight of hectic family schedules. "Kids understand that they are being cheated out of childhood," says Edward Zigler at Yale. "Eight-year-olds are taking care of three-year-olds. We're seeing depression...
Whitten says that he swims to keep in shape and stay healthy. But he has another reason for swimming that relates to his studies as a behavioral anthropologist. For a long time, Whitten has been interested in gerontology, which is study of aging...