Talk:Darkness in El Dorado
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This whole article manages to completely avoid even a hint at what terrible crimes the anthropologists were accused of - did they kill and eat the natives, violate the Prime Directive, sell uranium buttons, what?? Stan 18:53, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)
They did not, not at all, Stan, although Chagnon joined forces with strongly rejected Venezuelan political figures. It seems that he was aware of how corrupt this guys were, and that's what make his behavior unethical, not his research. The books is terribly flawed; besides the manipulation and forging of dubious information by Tierney, more troubling and obscure is Tierney's relationship with the New Tribes Mission and his quite homophobic remarks about certain anthropologists and Yanomami. BTW, what are you calling "Prime Directive"? Isn't that from Star Trek? Tierney accused (justly) some filmmakers (not Chagnon) of doing something that is preached by Star Trek's Prime Directive: not intervening. Quite contrary to the TV show, any socially conscious research would consider following Star Trek's Prime Directive as quite unethical and criminal, actually! From Venezuela, dalegrett 15:21, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Having just read the book I am puzzled by the comments regarding Tierney's supposedly "homophobic" remarks. He is rightfully critcial of Lizot's trading of goods for sex. There is nothing homophobic about that at all.
There is very little in the article about the substance of Tierney's arguments or the controversy that followed its publication. Moreover, dwelling on the allusions in the title (to El Dorado and Joseph Conrad) hardly seem relevant. Mere fluff that fills out the article without really saying anything about topic. --picaraza 05:28, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm new to wikipedia, so I don't know how we'd go about this, but is there any way to unlink Terry Turner's name in this article from the TV producer of the same name?
[edit] A more general point
Why must I come here for information on this controversy and find more "facts" (unsourced and unattributed) in the discussion page than in the main body of the argument?
This article says essentially that Chagnon was exonerated of "the most serious charges" by one inquiry, but does not list those charges or deal with the factual issues in the debate.
And I am pretty sure that U. Mich was not the only body looking into this.
I say that this is a prime candidate for an WP:NPOV debate.
Because it it not enough to state a handful of true, or generally true, or true in some sense or another, or truthy, factoids to support general conclusion about the outcome of the debate.
That is nothing more than confirmation bias.
It must be shown that OTHER FACTS IN EVIDENCE have NOT BEEN OMMITTED and that a representative sample of all relevant viewpoints have been taken into account.
And just who wrote this article anyway?
I think Wikipedia's policy of allowing anonymous authorship as the rule rather than the exception is a fundamental travesty.
-- CBrayton]
