Ergaster

The funny thing about the Tim White quote is that it is probably accurate. It makes more sense, though, if you know something about Tim White. He has certain very strong opinions about the practice of paleoanthropology, and has never felt particularly constrained about voicing them. He basically doesn't give a damn what people think. In some books that mention him (Johanson's "Lucy.." for one), you may notice that the authors mention his "prickly" personality. From all I have read and heard, they are being nice. His reputation as a scientist is impeccable, however, so I suppose he figures that gives him the latitude to basically be an a**h**e (when I was considering grad school, one of my profs went out of his way to warn me off applying to work with White. He assured me that they were close friends, but Tim has a "personality problem", as he put it....). If he said the above (and it sounds like something he'd say), I have no doubt he meant it in exactly the way it comes across.

I found a recent article by him in my files called: A view on the science: Physical anthropology at the millenium, (2000) American Journal of Physical Anthropology 113:287-292. Here are some excerpts, and a little game--see how many paleoanthro news stories he refers to that you recognize. (-:

"Colleagues constantly remind me of the perceived risks of speaking candidly. As before, I will ignore them here. It is to students that I address my reflections on two essential and tightly interwoven issues in paleoanthropology at the millenium: the scientist versus the careerist, and the unbalanced ecosystem of paleoanthroplogy....As a consequence of paleoanthropology's wide public appeal, the media are eager to report whatever some "authority" pronounces about a "discovery"...Many paleoanthropologists now offer poorly-researched but media friendly "findings"....We have witnessed dolphin ribs masquerading as hominid clavicles, Neanderthal nasal traits conjured from plaster reconstructions, a Pleistocene love child with a bloodline based on short limbs, Mousterian mortuary practices inferred from scratches made by steel anthropometers, big bodies forcing migration to Georgia, a Neanderthal "flute" made by chewing carnivores, hypoglossal canal metrics that would make monkeys talk, forest-burning space debris rekindling Homo erectus handaxe memories, and bushy, X-Files phylogenies with more hypothetical branches than real ones...."

For bonus points, how many colleagues did he diss in that section?

[ February 01, 2002: Message edited by: Ergaster ]</p>