Forcasting World Events

Here is a link to the Forcasting World Events research study that I mentioned in class if you are interested in learning more about it.
http://forecastwe.org/

Control in the Face of Disease

Butler's piece on the way that genetics (specifically disease) plays such a huge role in how we live and perceive of our lives reminded me of the debate over doctor-assisted suicide.  While the topic is far too emotionally charged and complex to do justice to in a brief blog post, the topic is relevant to the article.  The idea of suicide as a final way of control was brought up several times- instead of being forced to live in an institution (many of which would physically restrain people).  Therefore, instead of being shipped off, those with the DGD gene would commit suicide (or at least consider it).  Today, there is an ongoing debate about the legality and ethics of physician assisted suicide.  Some proponents of it say that if they have a terminal illness that will affect them slowly and they will eventually be entirely dependent on others for every aspect of their care, they would rather be able to have some type of control over their future and not live a life thats quality is severely diminished.  While DGD is not real, the emotions that those with the disease felt prior to 'drifting' are not quite as science fiction as we'd like to think.

The Evening and the Morning and the Night

My understanding of Octavia E. Butler's purpose of writing 'The Evening and the Morning and the Night', was to create a situation where the reader was posed with the questions: how much can our genetic makeup determine what are capabilities are, how we live our life and what we believe our futures will be?  She goes about this by writing the fictional story of Lynn, a young woman who is the daughter of two individuals who had Duryea-Gode disease.  The disease emerged as a side effect of a Hedeonco, a medicine that cured a variety of cancers.  At first the disease showed no symptoms, but as people aged it progressively grew worse with symptoms including self-mutilation and 'drifting' or going off into another world.
Constant throughout the piece, was a theme of being controlled by DGD and that having the knowledge that you would get the disease determined one's future. (Those who started showing symptoms of DGD were sent to institutions- some of which were nicer such as Dilg and others that were reminiscent of mental health institutes prior to humane laws were put in place.)  For instance, the fact that one was put into a hospital the moment they showed any sign of illness (even if it ended up being a false alarm) represented a lack of control in the most physical sense.  Families would sent their loved ones away, in many cases to be physically restrained to prevent self-mutilation.  On a  mental level, there was a feeling of hopelessness described by the people who knew they had the gene for DGD.  The only way in which some were able to display agency was by committing suicide before the disease took over their bodies.  Such actions represent the extreme, though often real emotions that individuals who have deteriorating conditions may grapple with.  Finally, on several occasions, the characters would reference and article they'd read in a scientific journal about the prognosis and symptoms of DGD.  In the context of this story, it struck me as though they took what the medical community published in scientific papers as the final say- they rarely questioned the accuracy of what was being reported.  This seemed to me as another way that they lost control- they just accepted what unknown doctors told them would be their fate.
While it was a bit of a gloomy read, I enjoyed the way that Butler incorporated a theme that remains prevalent today into her fictional world.

Musings on Science Fiction

                Works of science fiction aim to produce imaginative environments and places, but ones that still retain a degree of plausibility.  This genre takes the familiar – our mundane everyday experiences – and dresses them with sparks of creativity.  However, there is a delicate balance determining what is considered science fiction versus simply fiction.  In “The Coming of Age in Karhide,” we see the incorporation of abstract landmarks, names, societies, and histories.  However, these elements are stabilized by familiar figures: Mobiles, Aliens,  and “kemmer,” a relatable biological process.

                While the words “science fiction” usually induce images of futuristic societies and highly developed technologies, we almost see the opposite in Le Guin’s short story.  A few types of technology are mentioned such as the radio, used for communication, and mentioning of pictures, but it unclear as to the extent of other types of technology.  This work instead focuses on an alternate world in which humans are presumably cast as the “other,” being referred to as “Aliens.”  Le Guin develops a new species using the memories of the narrator.  She pays special attention to differences in culture and biology.  Using similarities to coming of age rites apparent in human cultures, she creates “Kemmerday,” the day in which individuals first realize their gender.  In the story, this is shown through the narrator’s recollection of her first menstruation.

                One of the phrases that stood out the most in this story was, “We shape each other to be human.”  It is clear at this point that the individuals of this civilization are most likely successors to humans.  Since the beginning of the story, the reader is seen as an outsider, a human.  However, by the end, we are pulled in by the similarities of this native population and our own biological processes.  Elements of love, sex, and the all too relatable process of puberty draw us together, blurring the lines of “the other.”

To Predict the Future or to Guide It

     Samuel Collin's article "Sail on! Sail on!: Anthropology, Science Fiction, and the Enticing Future" discusses the emerging trend in anthropology to attempt to predict future cultures and to add a sort of science fiction aspect to the anthropological field.  In this article, Collins addresses Margaret Mead's, and others', critiques of anthropology being "temprocentric."  These anthropologists believed that the field concerned itself with only "the past, the ethnographic past and the actual present," disregarding what anthropology could tell us about the future.  Collins also discusses the emerging relationship between anthropology and science fiction, remarking that science fiction writers need an understanding of anthropology (along with physics) and that it may be the case that anthropologists who are bad science fiction writers fall short as anthropologists in some way.

     Despite being a science fiction fan myself, I believe that anthropology must refrain from becoming a literary field and one that dabbles in predictions as much as science fiction.  Anthropologists are scientists concerned with understanding the human condition.  This condition includes human cultures, how our societies are structured, how these cultures exist today, how they have evolved, and how we humans ourselves have evolved.  Needless to say, anthropology covers a wide field of topics, though an anthologist’s understanding comes from data.  It is from this understanding that anthropologists find themselves in a position to affect the future and to better humanity's understanding of itself.  However, anthropology should avoid becoming a discipline of predicting the future.  It must avoid this as such attempts are doomed to fail.  There is no way that anthropologists can try to do predict the future without sacrificing their scientific standing.  If this standing is lost, anthropology shall loose its ability to improve society.  Instead of predicting the society’s future, anthropology must seek to guide society towards a better tomorrow by grounding our understanding of ourselves in the facts of the past and present.

SciFi and Sensationalizing Anthropology

While I generally agree with Allyson in that casting scientific fiction as an exploratory tool for anthropology may diminish the significant of it, I think that sensationalizing anthropology is one of the largest ways that the field receives attention from those not within it. Yes, data read from archeological dig records, or read from interview transcripts are the closest you can get to actual fact, but the general public has no interest in this at all. Even other anthropologists prefer reading the more colorful final product that is published ethnographies.

As pathetic as it may seem, I think somewhat fictionalizing stories about culture is the most prolific way of getting the information to the widest group of people possible. Granted many sensationalized accounts will not present the information well, or may create stereotypes that are either not true or over endorsed (Merchant of Venice for example), but other accounts many actually educate people in an entertaining way.

A fair example of this might be the presidential debates, which, although I also watched fully in real time, have been “songified” on YouTube. (While not strictly categorized within anthropological study, this example both touches on the issue of sensationalizing facts and also deals with technology so I figured it fits!) A YouTube channel summarized each of the three debates in a three-minute video/song that splices together the key moments and sound bites of each candidate. While I, in no way mean to advocate watching these videos and basing your vote (next week!) on them, they do highlight the key points. Yes, these videos are meant somewhat as a parody of each candidate’s character and yes they were probably made with bias, but I imagine that a handful of the two million viewers that they received did get some form of education from them. Plus there is no question that they are somewhat entertaining.

This analysis is definitely a stretch, and I acknowledge that. The issues we will be voting on are much deeper than a video can represent, just as most themes in anthropology are much deeper than a sensationalized or fictionalized account can present, but I would not want to dismiss all value in these accounts.

If you are interested, here is the link to the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSbxBQhzk3M

Anthropology and Science Fiction

          In “Sail On! Sail On!: Anthropology, Science Fiction and the Enticing Future,” Collins maintains that the anthropology has overemphasized the importance of the past and present while underestimating the importance of studying the future. This kind of tendency can be attributed to anthropology's "tempocentrism," a belief that our own current time represents what is right and we should judge things according to it. So Collins argues that we should pay more critical attention to future possibilities through anthropological science fiction. 
          Apparently it seems that I have been immersed in tempocentrism as well until I read this article. I have never been able to associate anthropology with studying future. I don't exactly know why, but I guess I unconsciously thought that studying future cannot be a "study," since it will be largely based on our imagination, which is not supported by factual information or solid evidences.
          While it is understandable that anthropology has problems in its myopic approach to studying humans, as it has only looked at past and present, I think it is ironic that anthropology has a problem of "tempocentrism." So far, from the anthropology courses I have taken, I have learned that we study anthropology because we should not be trapped in the cultural bias. We study anthropology so that we can better understand various human cultures, human behaviors, you name it, whatever once seems weird. So I thought that anthropology rejects anything that is '-centrism,' including tempocentrism and ethnocentrism, but then anthropology has problems in leaning towards tempocentrism and ethnocentrism, so it is pretty interesting. 
          Although the author talks about the relationship between anthropology and science fiction as something relatively new, I think anthropology has always been very closely related to science fiction, since they both deal with "others" regardless of time frame. Maybe there can be difference between imaginative representations of others and ethnographic representations of them, so I think it might be interesting to compare how the same "others" are viewed differently in anthropology and science fiction. 

Science Fiction in Making the Strange Familiar

     If I were to approach you on the street and tell you that Ursula K. LeGuin's story about a hermaphroditic alien's first sexual differentiation and experience in a communal mating house, taking place on an unknown alien planet where people always refer to the current year as Year One and young children toss babies around for fun, speaks to the universal themes of adolescent anxiety and the comforts of family, you might think me a bit strange. But hear me out. What LeGuin accomplishes in her short story Coming of Age in Karhide is a classical anthropological transformation: taking what is strange and alien, and finding in it something familiar.

     She starts off establishing the setting - right off the bat the reader is thrown off by a string of unfamiliar names and terms that gives the impression that they are not quite on Earth anymore. The reader gradually learns, through the use of contextual clues, that this is a society of periodically hermaphroditic individuals, living in communal and inter-generational "hearths" of roughly one and a half hundred individuals. The narrator is an old individual, some sixty-odd years (not necessarily Earth years) old, looking back on his/her youth. A great deal of importance is attached to the word "kemmer", which the reader slowly figures out is the word used to reference the periodic sexual differentiation of these normally asexual beings into either male or female forms, for the purposes of having sex (which usually occurs in someplace called a "kemmerhouse"). 

     Having created this strange and new world, LeGuin wastes no time in making seem as familiar as possible. As odd as it may seem, anyone who has gone through the trials and tribulations of puberty (read: everyone) can identify with the narrator's descriptions of his/her feelings before and during his/her momentous first kemmer. S/he talks about how s/he wants to be treated like an adult, but was still frustrated by her/his own immaturity. S/he mentions how frustrated s/he is at her own clumsiness, and the confusion and shame s/he experiences when her body starts to change in new unexpected ways. S/he's confused but intrigued by her/his first erection, and just about horrified when s/he wakes up one day to bloodstained sheets. This teen analogy culminates in the narrator's first sexual encounter, after which s/he falls in love with her/his first partner (only to immediately fall in love with her/his next partner, and so on. Typically teen.) Cleverly, by making her narrator a hermaphrodite, LeGuin makes her/his experiences relevant to readers of both genders. 

    Amusingly, LeGuin also participates in the other major transformation of anthropology - making the familiar strange. Throughout the story, the narrator compares her/himself to the Aliens - strange, savage creatures, some with supposedly large breasts and other particularly repulsive individuals with hair around their mouth, always controlled by passion and permanently stuck in kemmer. It's not long before an observant reader thinks, "Hey, wait. This sounds familiar..."

Speculative Zoology Post

I personally really like speculation of the science fiction, but in particular, I like it when by an artist rather than a writer, simply because they a work of art is worth a thousand words. Seeing a fully realized world that is simultaneously both alien and yet familiar is more satisfying and exciting that reading about one.

One of my favorite artists has the username Abiogenesis on deviantart. His artwork on the Birrin culture is very well designed. It's like having my preconceptions on how alien and human societies should work exploded on (digital) canvas.

Also, I just felt like this blog needed more art ;)

http://abiogenisis.deviantart.com/

Collins "Sail on!" and a Personal Reflection

Perhaps the best way I can interpret Collins' "Sail On! Sail On!: Anthropology, Science Fiction, and the Enticing Future" is the reflect on my own encounters with anthropology and science fiction.

I like science, I started as a chemical engineer, switched to systems engineering, considered majoring in biology, and now am double majoring in math and anthropology. I'm considering graduate school in some area related to math, whether pure, applied, biostatistics, systems engineering, or something of the sort. I've also taken art classes in the past, both as a hobby, and because the epistemological nature of art differs greatly from that of STEM subjects. I also greatly enjoy a lot of science fiction. I honestly have no idea what I would like to do as a career. Mostly I'm doing math in order to have a particular discipline, but how I would like to apply it I have no idea, and this decision seems so much harder when today's world is so inter-disciplinary. All I know is that I would like to 1) contribute to human knowledge 2) contribute to social progress 3) write a novel 4) pursue a healthy and fruitful life.

Collins' article thus struck a cord with me as I've always wondered why I found that I like anthropology, when I really have no affinity for history, philosophy, economics, literature, etc. I always thought that it was a combination of wanting to understand the human condition, wanting to expand my cultural horizons, and because the patterns of human phenomena manifested in society and culture pose interesting complex problems to study (science is the study of patterns in natural phenomena, while math is the study of patterns themselves (which is probably why I like math but hate anything computational)). And moreover, I like the anthropology that deals with contemporary and emergent human phenomena over reconstructing the past. Thus the idea Collins proposes that Anthropology and Science Fiction are in a way related, and that SF is in many ways a means by which to conduct anthropological or ethnographic experiments and thought experiments resonated very powerfully. It was one of those light bulb moments in which you immediately grasp onto the idea. It was something I had not ever realized, even though I had considered science fiction to be the genre of understanding hard to dissect ideas such as those of the human condition, precisely because by playing with the rules, we come to understand their consequences. And while I agree that human imagination is far less creative than nature itself (evolution creates life far more interesting than human imagination could ever conceive of), the use of such speculation in anthropological studies is I think a very powerful tool in dissecting our anthropological preconceptions, hypotheses, and theories. Not least of which because our ideas of the future ultimately shape how that future unfolds, even if our actual future does not resemble what we imagined at all (still no flying cars!).

I was pleasantly surprised, yet in retrospect I should have expected, that many science fiction writers have anthropological backgrounds.

The Past, Present and Future

            In “Sail On! Sail On!: Anthropology, Science Fiction and the Enticing Future,” Samuel Collins addresses the critique that anthropologists are “tempocentric,” or are only concerned with “the past, the ethnographic present and the actual present” (180). Collins also talks about the relationship between anthropology and science fiction, saying that they are more closely related now than they have ever been. As a result, Collins argues that anthropologists have no choice but to “embrace the future.” Using technologies of future works, this seems like a reasonable goal.

            The most interesting section of this article is the one entitled “Anthropologists as Bad Writers.” In this section, Collins references an excerpt from story called “Univara,” which is set in a utopian-like American society. The excerpt is a dialogue between two middle school students who are talking about the new welfare system that people have to work for. If they don’t work to earn that “living wage” they are deported to an “undeveloped country” nearby. This story functioned as an example of a story, written by an anthropologist that is too predictable and ethnocentric. Collins then asks the question “Does the existence of these types of stories means that anthropologists are bad science fiction writers?” He doesn’t explicitly answer this question, but he raises an interesting point about how science fiction writers need to have a basic understanding of anthropology to write futuristic fiction, while many anthropologists do not study the “future.” Therefore it is more difficult for anthropologists to predict the way technology will affect every day life in the future.

            I found this section interesting because I had never thought about anthropology in terms of “past, present and future” before. Most of the work we have done so far has been historical analysis, and looking ahead on the syllabus, it seems like the “technology” section is going to be about the way technology affects present day life. Is it important for anthropologists to think about the future? What is anthropology’s role in predicting or preparing for the future? I will definitely have these questions in mind during class and as I read the readings for the next few weeks.

How Futurology Hurts Anthropology

Samuel Gerald Collins discusses the role that the future plays in anthropology and gives a brief history of the subfield of “Anticipatory Anthropology” in his 1978 article “Sail On! Sal On!: Anthropology, Science Fiction, and the Enticing Future.” After reading the article, I can only see a focus on futuristic anthropology through the utilization of the science fiction genre as a further diminution of the standing of the field of anthropology as a scientific discipline. It works to show people that anthropology is nothing more than an imaginative field in which the anthropologist takes his or her own culturally biased ideals and applies them to past, present, and future. Indeed, what really separates the speculative nature inherent in futuristic anthropology from that of physical anthropology or archaeology? Are anthropologists not simply letting their imaginations get the best of them as they construct past and future according to their own personal ideals? For example, in Professor Sussman’s class the Biological Basis of Human Behavior he discusses the interpretation of the archaeological record that early Homo was a savage hunter, an interpretation that is strongly held by many anthropologists. Sussman argues that these anthropologists have the conception that since Homo is the dominant species of today, they likely evolved because of their superior skills as hunters. This preconception shapes the way that anthropologists interpret the limited evidence in the fossil record leading them to conclusions that Sussman believes are incorrect.

In my opinion, futuristic anthropology is an overextension of anthropology’s domain. While I can agree with Riner’s assertion that there is a need to increase interdisciplinary dialogue, especially as a means to educate each other and the general public, I do not feel that creating science fiction is the way to accomplish this. As Collin’s astutely put it, “just as anthropological invocations of the (traditional, savage) past have been inextricably embedded in power and knowledge configurations in the present, so, too, anthropological futures are imbricated with the fears and desires that make up anthropology’s disciplinary unconscious” (192). This is to say that future anthropology highlights the ethnocentrism and preconceived notions of the anthropologists and indicates to readers that the anthropologist has some ideal of “perfect cultures” or cultural values or norms that ultimately lead to complete devastation. Admitting to this, and consciously formulating these ideals causes the anthropologist to lose credibility and may further taint their future ethnographic interpretations.

For now, I feel we should leave science fiction to the writers and focus on constructing accurate portrayals of cultures with as little bias as humanly possible.

The “Future” of Anthropology

In Samuel Gerald Collins’s “Sail on! Sail on!: Anthropology, Science Fiction, and the Enticing Future,” he discusses how anthropologists have neglected attempts to study the possibilities of the future of humankind. I am particularly interested in Johannes Fabian’s metaphor: “Fabian argues in Time and the Other, the “[s]ystematic study of ‘primitive’ tribes began first in the hope of utilizing them as a kind of time-machine, a peep into our own historic past, as providing closer evidence about the early links in the great Series” that led to modern Western civilization” (180). As Collins discusses, this essay’s purpose is to address “anthropology’s persistent amnesia about its future work” (181).

With this metaphorical “time machine,” anthropologists are only using two of the time machine’s three choices: (1) backward time travel and (2) no time travel (the study of present day). For a long time, anthropologists have studied less-developed countries in order to take a glimpse at our past. However, anthropology has yet to take advantage of the third option: future time travel. Collins says, “By examining technologies of future work in anthropology, I hope to evoke the possibility of an emergent discourse no longer mired in the tempocentrisms of the past” (182). It is very important that Collins acknowledges the connection between anthropology and science fiction because by incorporating science fiction into anthropological studies, anthropologists like Ursula K. Le Guin are able to attempt to hypothesize about the future. Collins continues, “But while this is an essay largely critical of a certain strain of anthropological thought, I nevertheless believe that there is, in the intertexts of anthropology and science fiction, a good deal of potential” (182). There is in fact a lot of potential in this arena because the reason we study the past is to not repeat our mistakes. Therefore, anticipating the future will help project what will happen so we as humans can be prepared.

Stargazing in the NBA

The last time I was discussing the NBA, I gave a general overview of how I thought the Boston Celtics would fare in the 2012-13 season (http://anthropology4454.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-sport-of-basketball-and-why.html). I avoided using statistical analyses for the team preview because I think of most basketball statistics as more of a game-to-game and week-to-week entity.

Therefore, one reason why I enjoy watching each game is for individual players potentially reaching milestones. Basketball is the sport that revolves most around a singular star player because it requires just 5 players for a lineup and 12 to 15 to complete an NBA roster. The NHL (6 starters, 23-man roster), MLB (9 to 10 starters, 25-man roster) and NFL (11 starters, 53-man roster) all have more players in action and more players rostered than the NBA. In addition, soccer’s roster rules vary, but the game also needs more starters and players to field a squad than does basketball.

Baseball is the major sport that is least impacted by one player. Hockey, football and soccer all depend on star players, but basketball is by far the most affected by an individual performance. Baseball milestones are the most popularized. For example, some of the most legendary statistical achievements are the 762-HR mark set by Barry Bonds as well as Joe DiMaggio’s MLB-record 56-game hitting streak. However, basketball milestones are actually the ones that should be followed even more closely because individual stardom is magnified in the NBA. I recently posted “The Complete Guide to the Boston Celtics Milestones for the Upcoming 2012-13 Season” (You Can Read It Here: http://statsadam.blogspot.com/2012/10/your-complete-guide-to-boston-celtics.html) on my blog. Although the Celtics did not re-sign Ray Allen, they acquired Jason Terry, who is also near the top of the all-time three-pointers list. Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce are also moving up the ranks in the NBA and Celtics record books. It will be fun to see and track how they perform this year.

An Example of Do Harm: Pfizer and Trovafloxacin

     In follow up to our class discussions of clinical trials in foreign countries, I thought it might be interesting to mention the existence of more illegal examples of drug testing.  In reading about certain instances of abuse by pharmaceutical companies, I was horrorstruck by the basic disregard for human rights and health, especially considering the medical purpose of the studies.  Clearly, the business aspect of big pharm has been able to trump the do-no-harm ideology of medicine in numerous cases.

     One such example is the 1996 testing of Trovafloxacin, a quinolone antibiotic used to treat meningitis, on 100 children in Nigeria.  All of the children treated with the drug were already severely ill with meningitis.  Of the 200 children in the study, 100 received the untested Trovafloxacin while the other 100 received Cetriaxone (1).  Five children on Trovafloxacin died due to the drug, with many others suffering from physical disabilities including paralysis, deafness slurred speech and loss of sight.  Other children suffered from brain damage.  It was also shown that in at least one case, a child receiving Trovafloxacin was kept on the drug despite her deteriorating condition, a breach of experimental ethics.  This child died as a result.

    Six children in the Cetriaxone control group also died, despite this drug being an excepted form of treatment for meningitis.  It was later shown that this was a result of Pfizer deliberately providing its subjects with less than the proper dose of medication.  I imagine this was to cut costs of the study.  Amazingly, the study was conducted without the permission of the Nigerian government and without the consent of the children's' parents.

     Also amazing were the company's attempts to bribe and pressure government officials to drop charges after the crime had been found out and the numerous cover-ups that have taken place (3).

   Terrifyingly, according to expert Charles Medawar, director of Social Audit, the UK pressure group that monitors the pharmaceutical industry, “This particular case looks to be very bad, but I hardly think it is untypical.”

1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1119465/

2. http://www.irinnews.org/PrintReport.aspx?ReportId=72601

3. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/dec/09/wikileaks-cables-pfizer-nigeria

The Technological Singularity

I just posted on the Amanda Todd cyberbullying case and Youtube video and how it is a chilling example of how social media and the digital age are radically changing adolescence, social ostracization, celebrity, anonymity, accountability, and policy in the 21st century.

We have studied how science and technology and society are related and affect each other. I believe society to be in a state of transition that thoroughly needs to be studied and looked at during the transition. I said previously that digital technology is both new and yet thoroughly affects every aspects of our lives, and that thus we do not know the long term consequences of our new technology. I wonder how society will look like once it has reached steady-state in regards to digital technology, or if it will indeed ever reach a stead-state.

There's a concept in post-humanism and science fiction called the Technological Singularity. It is the idea that expands on Moore's Law of computers to say that technology in general changes exponentially, and thus there must be a point where that change becomes infinite, a point of asymptotic change. It claims that beyond the Singularity, the future is fundamentally and inherently unknowable. To quote Arthure C. Clarke,

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Since we're talking about science fiction, I'd like to recommend the works of Vernor Vinge, who's stories popularized the concept of the technological singularity. In particular, his Marooned in Realtime is a great mystery novel about a group of people who were left in stasis for too long, and essentially awoke on the other side of the singularity to a future devoid of humanity and clues to their disappearance. In particular, the people who were put in stasis only a few years apart in the years right before the singularity vary vastly in technological power. The story is about a person who gets marooned in realtime while the rest of the remnants of human society jump to the far future, and a detective commissioned to figure out who dunnit. I think one of my favorite parts is that a lot of the suspects have different conspiracy theories and ideas about the singularity but no one really knows. Represented are a scientific recluse, a corporate employee, a space traveler, a religious prophet, and a host of other characters. While the idea of 22nd century commercial family camping equipment having greater fire power than 20th century superpowers may seem absurd, it may not seem so absurd when we consider that we are not too far away from amateur biotechnology and home 3D printers.

While I don't personally ascribe to a hard Technological Singularity (I believe that technological progress is limited by social conservatism, resources, human ability, and the physical limits imposed by nature), it is an interesting metaphor for the change of the 21st century. One of the things impressed to me by my interviewee is that the technologies available to geneticists and genomics changes so rapidly that he couldn't say where it will be 5 years hence, and this is true of all technology. As much as I have cynicism for humanity and society, I have to say, I am very excited to see where technology goes in the next 50+ years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

Adolescence in the Age of Social Media, Cyberbullying, Amanda Todd Case

A friend on Facebook recently posted this to her wall:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/bullied-teen-amanda-todd-leaves-chilling-youtube-video/story?id=17463266

It's a case of 15 year old girl Amanda Todd who recently committed suicide because of bullying and stalking, made worse by the internet, after a man who had coerced her to send him a topless photo of her released it to the internet. Prior to her suicide, she posted a video called "My story: Struggling, bullying, suicide, self harm" on Youtube, which has since gone viral:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyHX7wMJBY0

This case is a sad example of what it means to be an adolescent growing up in the new digital age, and what it means for society and policy. Adolescents make mistakes and throughout time have been ostracized for their mistakes. But the dawn of the digital age has radically changed the environment in which adolescents grow up in. What does it mean to be an adolescent with instant access to digital media and the attention of the world? What does it mean when social interactions has been thoroughly imported into the digital stage? What does it mean when fame and ostracization occur at the speed of light and around the world? What does it mean when things that are put on the internet are permanently accessible and instantly transmittable without regards to a person's privacy or individual rights or the protection of a minor? What does it mean for justice and accountability when cyberbullying and cyberstalking happens in the comfort of mass anonymity? What does digital and social media mean when they are themselves the stage of this ostracization, backlash, rebuttal, support and every other aspect of this conversation?

It's easy for a person to laugh at people doing stupid things on the internet, and I believe that we are all guilty of that. It's easy to forget the feelings of people you don't know and who live thousands mile away. I think it's important to consider these questions. The digital age is both recent and yet has become thoroughly entrenched in our lives. It affects everyone, and yet it is not old enough for the people who have grown up with it to truly see the long term consequences of this change. Just consider how Youtube has been the stage for both unintentional and involuntary stardom, and for vloggers to make a living from their Youtube channels. How are 4chan, Anonymous, reddit, Facebook, Twitter affecting all aspects of society, and what does it mean for adolescence, privacy, sexuality, cyberbullying and cyberstalking, anonymity, and celebrity.

Edit: After looking at the syllabus again, this seems like it would'be been a better post for the Nov 14th class on Online Intimacy and Accountability.

Another SciFi Recommendation

Following in Robert's enthusiasm, I have another recommendation for a SciFi book, written by a former  Biological (or Sociolinguistic) Anthropologist.

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell.

"The novel begins in the year 2019, when the SETI program, at the Arecibo Observatory, picks up radio broadcasts of music from the vicinity of Alpha Centauri. The first expedition to Rakhat, the world that is sending the music, is organized by the Jesuit order...." (Wiki introduction to book.)

Present is good enough

I am a life-long sci-fi lover.  As a kid, I mostly loved the idea of commanding the force as a Jedi (starwars) or the notion of Wizards who have power over things by knowing their names (e.g. le guin’s earthsea series).  As an Adult, I appreciate more and more the way that authors use science fiction to make commentary on society and push the boundaries of how we think about ourselves and others (For example, Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game; Frank Herbert’s Dune). Anthropology can also push boundaries of how we think about ourselves and others, which is why I don’t think it is a coincidence that many anthropologists are also lovers (and sometimes writers) of SF, and a number of SF writers dabble in anthropology. 

Collins describes the corpus of SF literature as a “collective image factory, swapping cultural gestalts with corporations and politicians around an axis mundi of advanced capitalism” (p181).  I think this is true in the sense that SF writers are engaging the future to reflect back and comment on the culture that we live in now.  In this way, the so-called future is just an alternate version of the present, with cooler gadgets.

Anthropology of the Future?

This section, though composed of somewhat amusing attempts to address the future in anthropology, brings up the important issue of visioning in anthropology:  making recommendations for change.  Are we just to take copious descriptions and look at things in new ways, or are there recommendations to be made based on our research?

Taking, for example, Margaret Mead’s ideas about “cultural building”… granted they may be a little far-fetched as far as building new cultures in space colonies, but there is a seed of a good notion when we think about what’s the use of all of the knowledge and critique we provide in anthropology? What about the creation that becomes possible with more knowledge?  I think that greater awareness lends itself to greater responsibility for our choices—makes it apparent that we have choice--and with awareness-backed decisions, we are living and re-creating culture with greater authorship.

Collins discusses the crisis of complexity following the unraveling of clean functionalistic explanations as reason for the collapse of these fantastical utopian ideations.  Nonetheless, the complexity through which we understand culture today can’t excuse us from asking big questions like how do we want the future to be?

But to what extent does culture change on the basis of how we want the future to be, versus what we expect it will be?    I enjoyed the flip of the role of the future that Collins describes in the words of Geertz, that “anthropology is suspended in teleologies we ourselves have spun.  Our versions of life now are inescapably inflected by how we think life is going to be” (p190).

So, I believe that if the future is written in the present, then anthropology is where it needs to be.

Growing Up Online

While making a journal entry for another class, I found this documentary about the internet's impacts on kids. It says about 90% of teens in the US are online, immersed in a virtual world that's largely hidden from their parents. 

I think this documentary can be related to what we are going to discuss in class, and to our next mini-ethnography assignment as well. The documentary is really interesting! So just in case anyone's interested, I leave the link here:

PBS Frontline Documentary, "Growing up Online." 
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kidsonline/view/

Thinspiration: The Dangers of Pro-ana and Pro-mia Websites

            A few weeks ago I posted about forums aimed at supporting women transitioning from relaxed to straight hair and discussed the ways in which these forums were helping women to embrace their natural hair texture. This week, I wanted to focus on ways that online forum support groups can have harmful effects on the physical and psychological well being of the subscribers. One of the most salient examples of websites of this variety are the pro-ana and pro-mia websites that serve as media through which people suffering from anorexia or bulimia can foster a community. These sites offer tips on how people can lose more weight and better hide their eating disorder. The real danger, however, resides in the fact that these forums serve to solidify ideologies that one can never be thin enough and that eating disorders are lifestyle choices that are shows of strength and dedication. They present ‘conquering food’ through starvation or purging as a way to take control of one’s life.

Here is a news report featuring young women discussing how these pro-ana and pro-mia sites influenced their eating disorders:

One issue that arises in the video is whether search engines should remove the websites that promote eating disorders or if it is an issue of free speech. Even with removal of such sites from search engine results, people suffering from eating disorders will likely not have much difficulty locating them through other social networking sites. In fact, I came up with the topic for this post after seeing a raw food diet video on Youtube while searching for videos on the dangers of pesticides. The video featured a young lady telling a more seasoned raw food dieter about how she no energy and had stopped menstruating since starting the diet. The seasoned dieter responded by saying that she was detoxing and just needed to really want to have this ‘perfect’ diet in which she ate only ‘perfect’ foods. While videos such as these are not as harmful as those encouraging people into full-fledged eating disorders, it just illustrates how easy it is for information about ideal body types and diets to be disseminated through the web.

Do you feel that sites promoting unhealthy behaviors should be censored on the web by removing them from search engine results? Should the target age group factor into this censorship? 

Some science fiction stories for you guys to enjoy

I love science fiction, and I figured I'd share some of my favorite short stories with you. Most of my favorites  are by Isaac Asimov, who I (and many others) consider to be one of the best (and whose stories are readily available online).

Isaac Asimov - The Last Question - What happens when the universe runs down?
Isaac Asimov - The Machine That Won The War - Three men talk about the machine that won the war.
Frederic Brown - Knock - The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door..."
Ray Bradbury - A Sound of Thunder - A man goes back in time to hunt the biggest predator in history.
Kurt Vonnegut - Harrison Bergeron - A future where everyone isn't born equal. Everyone is made equal.

Enjoy!

Class Notes 10/24

Here you go! Notes after jump.

Shinya Yamanaka

I found an interesting New York Times article about Shinya Yamanaka, a Japanese scientist featured in the Sleeboom article for his discovery of Induced pluripotent stem cells, which are the equivalent of human embryonic stem cells, however, they are created without the use of human embryos. It follows the path of his career as a research scientist and heralds the potential benefits and ethical problems this discovery has solved. The article was published in 2007, when his discovery was receiving a large amount of media attention and its interesting to see how this article illustrates the finding as a way to possibly sidestep ethical issues which Sleeboom cites as reckless.

Stem Cells and Japan

In the article "Embryo Controversies and Governing Stem Cell Research in Japan", Sleeboom-Faulkner writes about the discrepancy between what she calls the national discussion on embryonic stem cell research and the (lack thereof) public debate. The former describes discussions orchestrated by the government, including the active participants and stakeholders in the issue, including an amplification of minority sentiments. In Japan, there is a seeming lack of a public debate on ESC research despite much regulatory and ethical debate among the government and academics actively engaged with this field. This is in contrast to much of Europe and the United States, where the moral and religious questions of ESC have shown up in the public debate and the election cycle. Minority groups with active interests in embryonic stem cell research include a few radical religious groups (though their position is not as restrictive as religious groups in the Western world), anti-eugenics movement, and on the opposite spectrum, people who could potentially benefit from stem cell therapy. Their views are loud because they have been amplified by politicians and academicians. Regulation has moved towards promoting research and procuring reproductive materials, with regulation changing in regards to the current state of international research. (I found in interesting that Japan regulate with legislation). This national discussion is also sensitive to the sentiments of the international community and the Western world on ESC research over sentiments at home. However, even if there is a political consensus on how to approach ESC, Sleeboom-Faulkner argues that public confidence and support can not be achieved without public debate, and most of her interviewees agree that a wider public debate is necessary for the success of ESC research.

I thought it was interesting to learn about the ways in which Japan's ESC climate was different from the ESC climate in the United States, where it is my impression that in the United States, ESC research has been a salient public discussion topic and an active topic in the last few election cycles (which I believe to fairly approximate the topics of concern to the general electorate).

Naming life: science versus culture

“The power to “name” life here (de Certeau 1984) can be seen as the power to define what life means, who respects it, and who violates it.” (Faulkner p. 228)

This quote from the  “Regulating cell lives in Japan,” acts in my opinion, as a concise and well-worded summary for many of the bioethical debates that surround stem-cell research, as well as issues about contraception and abortion, which are also particularly salient at this time. While this article touched on several different aspects of the debate of bioethics, I thought this moment epitomized a theme of this course.

“The power to “name” life,” comes out of the knowledge and technology that is available to create, aid, and extend life. Artificial insemination or in-vitro insemination can create life, thus calling a fertilized embryo sitting in a dish to be so labeled.  Ventilators can put breath into a dying, or even mentally dead person, to prolong their technical and biological death, thus giving them this same label of being alive, of “life”.

However, the apex of this argument comes to light in the fact that this label of life, as science and technology give it, conflicts with the parallel definitions and labels that cultures, religions, and individuals would apply. Though observation and lab work indicate there is cell growth and proliferation in the now fertilized ovum in the petri dish, many people would not call that life. Even when this same embryo is within a human female, many people mark a distinct and much later point as life’s beginning. What complicates things more is that these opinions, further conflict with other cultural, and more notably religious opinions, some of which maintain life begins upon fertilization.

This is exactly the classic debate on abortion – how do you determine who “respects it, and who violates it,” when there is no agreement on when “it” begins?

Stem-cell research is still a relatively young technology, so although many cultural groups have claimed their stance on it, it has yet to reach a level of discourse analogous to that of abortion. However, the movie “Gattaca,” though perhaps a hyperbole of what society might be like in times with more power to manipulate stem-cells and determine our offspring, suggests to us an idea of what these advancing technologies may bring us. The movie’s undercurrent of corruption and discrimination (again though hyperbolic) suggests the multitude of issues that will continue to arise as culture conflicts with the rapidly advancing scientific technology.

The international race: economic and ethical implications

Charis Thompson’s article “Asian Regeneration?” offers an interesting perspective on stem cell research, looking past just the moral implications of breakthroughs in the field in an effort to analyze the political and economic factors that play a role in the international bio-technology and medical industries.  Thompson does this by researching stem cell research in Asia, specifically South Korea and Singapore.  These countries have experienced rapid economic growth in the last several decades.  Furthermore, the bio-medical industry has become an international force, leading to the exchange of ideas, personnel, thoughts on the roles of scientists and research institutions in culture, and considerably large amounts of money. The rapid growth of this industry has forced rapid changes in laws, religion and ethics, as well as shifts in economic and scientific power.  For example, such research has lead East Asian stem cell ethicists to come up with Confucian ethical precepts to guide stem cell regulation, in part as a response to Western ideas of ethics and the ethical barriers that currently exist in Western countries preventing stem cell research on the same scale as Asia.  The change in culture and religion to allow for an expanding technological frontier is a prime example of science’s transformative nature within society.

           What I find extraordinary is the rise of a nationalistic perspective on science.  This viewpoint is exemplified by the story surrounding Dr. Hwang Woo-Suk’s research and his subsequent international disgrace.  However, it demonstrates the great pride taken in innovation in these countries as well as the crucial role that science plays in culture.  Scientific advancement in Asia has been found to indicate superiority on the international stage.

           Finally, Thompson mentions the growth of medical tourism.  Prior to reading this article, I had not considered the possibility of individuals going to different countries in order to access different treatments.  Beyond the economic effects of such tourism, it becomes clear that medicine and research play key roles in which countries have power and which do not as well as the very international world we now live in.  Individuals no longer exist in ways that inhibit them from taking advantage of different countries and their laws.  However, the differences between countries highlight the large gaps in knowledge and perhaps illustrate a certain ethical danger of capitalistic approaches to science.  Perhaps science advances too quickly for law, ethics, and society, with the international scientific race only increasing the pace at which science outruns the boundaries of society’s understanding.

Frozen Egg Donations and Genome Sequencing in Newborns

This week, I stumbled upon two articles that I found interesting and relevant to the course
The first is called 'Egg Freezing Changing Fertility Treatments' which discussed the use of donated frozen eggs to assist women trying to get pregnant (as opposed to the more common 'fresh egg' donations).  As the eggs are frozen, they can be shipped all over the country which opens up a new online egg donor market.  On these online marketplaces, families can literally view a spreadsheet of potential egg donors that lists donor characteristics including height, hair color, eye color, education, ethnicity etc. It is interesting to see the way the internet and new scientific technologies are opening up the egg donor market and allowing someone to purchase something so important online, similarly to how one would purchase a book from Amazon or clothes from an online retailer.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/22/health/frozen-egg-banks/index.html?hpt=he_t3

The second article was relevant to the film we watched last week, Gattaca.  It discussed the growing popularity of genome sequencing in infants to determine what diseases they were at risk for.  It also went over the potential benefits and negative repercussions involved in delving into these developing technologies.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/22/health/sequence-children-genomes/?iref=obinsite

National Pride and Scientific Fraud

Reading about the intense pride the Japanese public and government had in the discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells by a Japanese researcher reminded me of another scientist who became a national hero through his work in stem cell research. His story, however, doesn't end in a Nobel Prize, but in embarrassment and disgrace, and is a nice complement to our discussions on ethics in research.

If you've been following medical research in recent years, you know who I'm talking about. Dr. Hwang Woo-Suk was a Korean researcher made world famous by his apparent cloning of human embryonic stem cells - a feat previously (and now again) considered near impossible. He managed to have not one, but two papers published in the premier academic journal, Science. The South Korean government issued stamps with his face on them. However, it soon came to light that his data - and the papers based on them - had been fabricated. Not only that, he had violated research ethics by obtaining some of the embryos used in his research from his own researchers and also paying egg donors for their oocytes. He was promptly fired, and his two Science papers were withdrawn by the journal.

What's interesting about Dr. Hwang Woo-Suk is that his aptitude for cloning isn't just fictional. In 2005, after he had published his falsified stem cell data but before his misconduct had been brought to light, he led a team of scientists in the creation of the first cloned dog, Snuppy. TIME magazine named Snuppy as 2005's most amazing invention. Dr. Hwang Woo-Suk has also repeatedly insisted that he has the capacity to achieve what he claimed, but was undermined by other members of his project giving him false data. He might be able to back that claim up yet, as his disgrace hasn't stopped him from continuing his stem cell cloning work elsewhere. Most recently, he has claimed to have managed to clone pig stem cells.

Sources: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/12/25/8396782/index.htm
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/genetics/2006-01-02-stem-cell-govt_x.htm

Asian Regeneration

In Asian Regeneration?: Nationalism and Internationalism in Stem Cell Research in South Korea and Singapore Charis Thompson discusses the way stem cell research has been carried out in the 'Asian Tiger' countries of Singapore and South Korea.  He starts by discussing the impact that the stem cell revolution has had around the world and why it has played such a vital role in the scientific community in Asia.  Thompson really wanted to highlight the differences between the two countries and the way went about studying stem cells, because the author claims many people tend to lump the Asian countries all together.  Instead, these countries take advantage of the way that Western countries (such as the United States) have a more limited role in research.  Due to health/safety/ethical regulations, stem cell research in the US is limited.  However, the potential benefits that stem cell research holds, make conducting further research quite tempting for countries not restricted by ethical regulations.  For instance, as the field is still relatively young, there are many innovations to be made that can bring acclaim to both scientists and to their nation.  Additionally, economic benefits and intellectual property benefits are two additional ways that countries could prosper from research not dominated by the United States.  Through ethnographic research in a Singapore and South Korean lab, Thompson discovers the way the two countries have differed in their stem cell studies.   Briefly, in South Korea, the concept of nationalism was far more prevalent in the lab (and in its explanations for its scientific successes).  Singapore, on the other hand, had much more of an international feel within its lab (both less nationalistic in its pride and with the diverse researchers working at Biopolis).  An example highlighted by Thompson was the way the zebrafish were housed at Biopolis: they were organized in an 'American style' and 'German style'.  By appealing to international scientists, Singapore was able to establish itself as more of a business wanting to establish economic growth within itself.  As stem cell research still remains a new and promising field, it will be interesting to see where countries in Asia as well as other scientifically ambitious countries decide to take their research endeavors.  It will also be interesting to see if/when stem cell research will become a larger research project within the United States, and how this will effect countries who are taking advantage of the current lack of research coming out of the US in this field.

Stem Cells in Japan

        In her paper Regulating Cell Lives in Japan: Avoiding Scandal and Sticking to Nature, Margaret Sleeboom-Faulkner gives us a clear overview of the role stem cell research has played in Japan's recent past and how its social relevance has blossomed in recent years. Today this more relevant than ever, with the awarding of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Shinya Yamanaka - discoverer of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSs) and one of the scientists mentioned in the paper - and Sir John Gurdon, who laid the foundations for this discovery in experiments carried out fifty years ago.
       Sleeboom-Faulkner starts by characterizing the social controversy in Japan revolving around the use of human embryonic stem cells (hES) in stem cell research, and how human embryos are viewed by the Japanese public. She points out many contradictory practices and viewpoints that highlight just how widely public opinion differs on the topic. In Japan, abortion is common but still illegal under the penal code. She notes that while many Japanese would say fetuses have no spirit, rituals honoring the spirits of aborted fetuses have flourished. In-vitro fertilization techniques have become more popular, and simultaneously value the embryos chosen for implantation and devalue those that are not selected (and subsequently discarded) (p230). As a consequence of these mixed social views, the general policy towards hES research in Japan has been to allow it but to regulate it to the point of inefficiency in order to avoid any potential controversy.
       It is for this reason that the discovery of iPSs - adult cells that are 'tricked' into reverting to their pluripotent state - was received with such exuberance by the Japanese public and government. In the media's portrayal of iPSs, you could now have all the potential benefit of hESs without having to wade through the latter's ethical/moral quagmires. In the two years following the discovery in 2006, public literacy concerning stem cells and pluripotency essentially went from nonexistent to universal (p233). Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) immediately moved to set a side millions of dollars in funding for iPS research.
       I find it interesting just how much this focus on iPS research is driven by public perception and social factors. Scientifically, it's risky to put all your eggs in one basket, and the best course of action would be to diversify research into all the different methods of stem cell generation. As the scientists interviewed by the author put it, putting all this money into just iPS research is scientifically "reckless" (p236). I've actually personally witnessed firsthand a different, but related example of this sort of resistance to popular pressure affecting science/medical policy. I was in Massachusetts for a medical school interview and I managed to find my way into a medical student body meeting for the Massachusetts Medical Society. They were going over the Society's official stance on current hot topics in medicine, and I was surprised to hear that it was against the legalization of medical marijuana. There has been a lot of recent support for the widespread adoption of medical marijuana, and as it turns out this was the precise reason for the MMS for opposing it - as the chairman put it, it had become too politicized and decisions regarding medical legislation should not be influenced by popular opinion.


Margaret Sleeboom-Faulkner (2011): Regulating cell lives in Japan: avoiding scandal and sticking to nature, New Genetics and Society, 30:3, 227-240