New project in evolutionary theory and cultural anthropology
Photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash. As a cultural anthropologist, I am thrilled that cultural variation is increasingly recognized as significant in a wide range of fields, cognitive…
Author: gregdowney
Not allowed to have a small heart: Tourette Syndrome
Sometimes I feel ashamed to be close with my friends.“How come you’re so distant? Just come over here, it’s no problem, you know.”I’m not allowed to have a…
2 legs good, 4 legs better: Uner Tan syndrome, part 2
Image by massaoud el allaoui from Pixabay (I am republishing a lot of my ‘legacy content’ from our PLOS Neuroanthropology weblog, which has been taken down, along with many of the…
Asifa Majid on language and olfaction
(I am republishing a lot of ‘legacy content’ from our PLOS Neuroanthropology weblog, which has been taken down, along with many of the other founding PLOS Blogs. Some…
Giving names to aromas in Aslian languages
The sanitary and mechanical age we are now entering makes up for the mercy it grants to our sense of smell by the ferocity with which it assails…
Life in the Dark
Image by Pexels from Pixabay (I am republishing a lot of ‘legacy content’ from our PLOS Neuroanthropology weblog, which has been taken down, along with many of the other found…
Manipulating student evaluations: the Downey Sales School method
Student evaluations are biased? Yes, yes, they are. Research has repeatedly shown that students’ evaluations of teaching quality show a range of biases. For example, Anne Boring, Kellie Ottoboni…
Getting around by sound: Human echolocation (first published, 14 June 2011)
(We are republishing ‘legacy content’ from our PLOS Neuroanthropology weblog, which has been taken down, along with many of the other founding PLOS Blogs. Some of these, I…
Neuroanthropology 2020-09-05 03:49:06
“If you have the power to hit people over the head whenever you want, you don’t have to trouble yourself too much figuring out what they think is…
David Graeber: 1961-2020
Anthropologist, activist, and author David Graeber, author of some of the most popular and cutting recent works in our discipline, has passed away at 59 according to his…
Fiji Fieldschool press release
Photo by Suhad Hussain. 2015 Macquarie University students in the unit, Anth 225 ‘Field school in anthropology: Fiji,’ are currently on Beqa Island in Fiji where they are…
Pervez Hoodbhoy and Scott Atran on hope and extremism
By Profs. Pervez Hoodbhoy and Scott Atran After he circulated his address to the UN Security Council on extremism (available here), Prof. Scott Atran received the following response…
Scott Atran on Youth, Violent Extremism and Promoting Peace
On 23 April, 2015, Prof. Scott Atran addressed the UN Security Council, to our knowledge the first time an anthropologist has ever been asked to speak to this…
Plastics, tiny penises, and human evolution
By Greg Downey. (5000 words) An Italian study in 2012 found that men’s penises were growing smaller over time — two centimetres lost from grandfather to grandson in…
From the Archives: Asifa Majid on language and olfaction
When I first ran across Asifa Majid’s article with Ewelina Wnuk in Cognition, about how speakers of Maniq, a language indigenous to southern Thailand, have a vocabulary for…
New Book, Intimate Economies of Development, out from Chris Lyttleton
Culture Matters is pleased to announce that Assoc. Prof. Chris Lyttleton’s new book, Intimate Economies of Development: Mobility, Sexuality and Health in Asia, has been launched by Routledge Press.…