The Importance of Critics (A Critique of Jonathan Marks’ Critique of The Bell Curve)

          This critique will not so much be a traditional critique of a reading, for Elizabeth did an excellent job synthesizing and analyzing the same article in her post from April 21 (found here: http://theoryisthenewblack.blogspot.com/2014/04/cracks-in-bell-curve.html). But I was so fascinated by how and why Jonathan Marks critiques The Bell Curve (1994) that I thought it warranted another post, one that was more a defense of his work and encouragement for future anthropologists to keep a critical eye on their colleagues’ works.

            The importance of public anthropology, in my mind, is that it brings anthropological research and theory out of the closed-off world of academia, and into the public sector- making it available for all people, not just anthropologists. Additionally, the field allows for anthropology to help the world deal with certain issues and debates as they arise and as they are important to regular people. Instead of discussing the symbolism of the Kula ring or the kinship patterns of the Native American tribes, public anthropology brings the study of people and cultures into present discussions that are happening in many other disciplines. It makes anthropology practical, not just theoretical.

            However, one of the dangers of public anthropology is the same as why I so revere it: it brings anthropology to an audience that is not necessarily educated in the discipline. Though this opens a lot of doors for expanding the way people think, if research is not done well or explained correctly, it can be seriously misleading, yet convincing. This was the case with R. Herrnstein and C. Murray’s The Bell Curve, which used pseudoscience of the past to state that intelligence is inherited and not affected by environmental factors at all. It played off of the public’s interest in the nature vs. nurture debate, and led them down a dangerous road towards increased racism. This poor science and subsequent racism could have impacted public policy, if it were not for the anthropologists that still had a keen eye for critique, like Jonathan Marks.

            Jonathan Marks, in the article “Anthropology and The Bell Curve,” from the book, Why America’s Top Pundits Are Wrong: Anthropologists Talk Back (2005), easily disproves the science of Herrnstein and Murray in a manner that is just as easy for the public to read and understand. Marks clearly shows the link between the “science” of their research and the political influence they were trying to have, concluding by saying “given its scholarship, citations, and associations, it is hard to see the goal of The Bell Curve as other than to rationalize economic inequality, to perpetuate injustice, and to justify social oppression” (543). Marks goes through the arguments in The Bell Curve and step-by-step breaks them down, so that it is an argument that is not too theoretical. This is key for critiquing public anthropological work: the critiques have to be just as easy for the public to understand as the original research.

            The public tends to be easy to convince, especially if the person presenting information sounds like they know what they are talking about. They tend not to have a critical eye for things they read, especially if what they are reading has become super popular. Because of this, public anthropology must continue to have critics, like Jonathan Marks, who expose poor research and prevent the name of anthropology from being discounted because of a few not-so-great (read: abhorrent) anthropologists. Without this critics, public anthropology will become more dangerous than good.