Patrick Tierney

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Patrick Tierney is an investigative journalist who works as a volunteer to the UCIS at the University of Pittsburgh.

In 2000, Tierney published a controversial book titled Darkness in El Dorado, which called into question the ethics of the fieldwork of several noted scholars, including geneticist James Neel and anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon.

A previous book by Tierney, The Highest Altar: The Story of Human Sacrifice (1989), documents religious practices in the high Andes.

Tierney's charges were investigated by researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Per a preliminary report issued in 2001 [1], the investigators concluded it was not Chagnon who committed any wrongdoing, but Tierney, who fraudulently altered evidence to support a story he either at best imagined or at worst manufactured. A separate investigation by the American Anthropological Association joined Tierney in questioning the conduct of Neel and Chagnon; however, the association rescinded its report in 2005, stating that the "investigation did not follow basic principles of fairness and due process for the accused" (see [2]).