Is this progress?

An  item in _Science (v. 318, Nov. 30/07, p. 1357) notes the heroic 
effort of anthropologists Janet and Thomas Headland in studying the Agta, 
a hunter-gatherer tribe in the Phillipines, for 45 years. Thomas Headland 
observes:

"When I first started working with the Agta, they didn't wear clothes; 
they didn't eat farmed food. Now some of them use cell phones".

I can't wait for the  Apple commercial. 

And that word "heroic" reminds me of one of my favourite lines from  _The 
Nurture Assumption_ (Harris, 1998, p. 186),  commenting on Napoleon 
Chagnon's apparently personal investigation of the uncomfortable practice 
of penis-tying among the Yamamoto: "Whatever they pay anthropologists, it 
isn't enough". 

Stephen

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Stephen L. Black, Ph.D.          
Professor of Psychology, Emeritus   
Bishop's University                e-mail:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
2600 College St.
Sherbrooke QC  J1M 1Z7
Canada

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