Because some of the issues raised by Ben (who commented on the previous entry on war research in anthropology) are shared by many readers, I'll respond below. Not picking on Ben, of course, as they're good questions, one and all...

BEN: "If an anthropologist is upsetting the "balance of power" with heavenly booty, to me it would still be interesting to see how the culture reacts to those changed circumstances."

CPR: Could be interesting, but you couldn't really call it anthropology or ethnology, which are about trying to observe cultures in as much detail as possible without being a disruptive presence yourself. What you're talking about is more of a controlled experiment than what Chagnon and other anthropologists are doing (at least in theory).

BEN: "Yes, there may have been a 12 year lull in killing, but if we are hoping to find evidence, presumably, of a nonviolent culture in order to support our hope that murder and war is not pervasive anywhere humans congregate, then I would hope that this culture would respond to a shakeup in the balance of power in a peaceful, Gandhi-style way."

CPR: Again, this isn't really the way this sort of research is done (again, at least in theory). Anthropologists are gathering information, as opposed to setting off "hoping to find" this or that. The theorizing comes later, and as in most sciences, is often done by others who rely upon the research being as objective as possible. Which is why conflating different things is problematic (see below).

BEN: "Otherwise, we are left in the somewhat tricky position of criticizing the methodology of someone who is observing violence and stating that it's natural, rather than gathering proof of peacefulness. In other words, it sort of puts the peace-lovers on the defensive, rather than the offensive, in the debate."

CPR: Nothing tricky about it; they're two different endeavors. If a physicist looks at another physicist's work and concludes that his numbers don't add up and that this is probably because he was using a defective instrument, that's important information. Physicist #2 is under no obligation to provide him a new instrument or anything else. A valid critique of methodology, in other words, doesn't imply or require any further engagement in the overriding debate, nor does it require any position in that debate. One need not be a "peace-lover" to notice that Chagnon's methodology was screwed-up, and many of those who have criticized his work probably would agree that war is part of human nature. But agreeing with his conclusions doesn't make them blind to the flaws of his process.

BEN: "Also, I feel a little peeved when you say that the dude "conflates" murder and war. If I am giving a speech about outdoor sports, and I talk about how cleats are dangerous, and if I use soccer in one sentence and then lacrosse in the next sentence, I am not necessarily "conflating" anything, I am using the two references interchangeably, since in the context of talking about cleats there is no substantial difference."

CPR: Fair enough, but if you're giving a talk on soccer, but include the goal totals from lacrosse games without mentioning that (nor mentioning that lacrosse games tend to have much higher scores than do soccer games), then you're misleading your audience. Murder and war are not the same thing at all, just as soccer and lacrosse are not the same game. If you disagree, the onus is on you to make your case, not on those who accept the distinction between two sports that are played in different places, by different teams, wearing different gear, using different tactics, etc.

BEN: "If what we are studying is the tendency of humans to cross a sort of line of universal morality and to take the lives of others for our own gain, it seems to me like murder and war could indeed be used interchangeably, since war is simply murder on a grander scale."

CPR: But that's your definition of "what we are studying." Mine is that we are studying the ubiquity of war in human societies. If you want to argue that war is just murder on a grander scale, you can, but that's your task, not mine. You see? You're providing your own definition of what war is (large-scale murder), then faulting others for not incorporating your definition into their work.

BEN: "Just because you find a technologically primitive group of peeps does not make their way of life more "natural" than the way of life of humans living in a more technologically advanced society. Being humans, they may have societally-taught cultural morals that cause them to repress their "human nature" the same as Western civilization might."

CPR: That's an important point. Of course, you're right that every culture has moral structures through which individuals perceive "reality." The idea underlying theorizing in evolutionary psychology is that people who live with more or less the same relationship to the natural world as all humans had in the ancestral environment (hunter/gatherers) will tend to have ways of thinking closer to our ancestors. If you want to understand canine behavior, it's important that you don't limit your research to the dogs snoozing in the kitchen, but that you also take a look at wolves and coyotes in the wild.

BEN: "So, in a way, I agree with you that this dude's methodology is dubious, but I would start with the more fundamental criticism that you cannot expect to learn anything that enlightening about man in their "natural state" just by observing peeps with less advanced technology in the boondocks. I mean, it's a start, but by no means definitive."

CPR: You're right that it's not definitive. But if you find the same things over and over, in people with no contact between them, in different parts of the world, then you might be closing in on something definitive. Similarly, if you find repeated patterns in relation between environment and behavior, you're learning something important. Which brings us back to the importance of solid methodology in field research.

BEN: "Perhaps finding violent peeps in the boondocks or in the middle east or in Detroit or in Los Angeles or Des Moines, if not proving that violence is natural, at least shows that there is not a terribly strong natural resistance in humans towards the circumstantial pressures to be violent."

CPR: Could be. Or, it could be that this shows there's something common to the social/economic structures found in Detroit, LA, and Tel Aviv that provokes violence between groups. Or it could be something else. Figuring out what, if anything, that demonstrates is what it's all about.