Darkness in El Dorado Controversy - Teaching Resources

The following is a collection of reading assignments that can be used for teaching about the controversies surrounding the book Darkness in El Dorado. This is a work in progress, so if you have any other information that you think would be useful to post on this page, please contact me.

Teaching Background Information

• Imminent Anthropological Scandal Email to Louise Lamphere and Don Brenneis from Terry Turner and Leslie Sponsel
• The Fierce Anthropologist: Did a Scentist Harm the Tribe He Studied? by Patrick Tierney, The New Yorker, October 9, 2000 (PDF document)
• Scholars Fear That Alleged Misdeeds by Amazon Anthropologists Will Taint Entire Discipline by D.W. Miller, The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 20, 2000
• The University of California, Santa Barbara, Preliminary Peport on Patrick Tierney’s allegations in Darkness in El Dorado (334K, PDF format).
• Biographical Information on Key Players in the ‘Scandal’ Information on: Timothy Asch, Napoleon Chagnon, Jacques Lizot, James Neel and Patrick Tierney.
• Perspectives on Tierney’s Darkness in El Dorado Current Anthropology, Volume 42, Number 2, April 2001, Forum on Anthroplogy in Public (papers by Fernando Coronil, Alan G. Fix, Peter Pels, Charles L. Briggs, Clara E. Mantini-Briggs, Raymond Hames, Susan Lindee, and Alcida Rita Ramos)
• Yanomamö and Darkness in El Dorado Bibliography A growing bibliography of resources on the Yanomamö, Darkness in El Dorado, Patrick Tierney, Napoleon Chagnon, and James Neel.
• Darkness in Academia: Cultural Models of How Anthropologists and Journalists Write About Controversy. Douglas William Hume, World Cultures eJournal 21(1), August 2016 (pdf).

Teaching Recent Information

• American Anthropological Association: Referendum to Rescind The El Dorado Task Force Report
• American Anthropological Association: Executive Board Rescinds Acceptance of El Dorado Task Force Report, September 14, 2005
  • Preface for El Dorado Task Force Papers
  • Read Final Report – Volume One – pdf – 500kb
  • Read Final Report – Volume Two – pdf – 726kb
• Anthropologists Rescend Report That Examined Allegation of Misconduct by Researchers in the Amazon The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 28, 2005 (pdf)
• Retreat at el Dorado Chronicle of Higher Education, July 8, 2005
• News of the Week Anthropology: A New Skirmish in the Yanomamö Wars Science, July 8, 2005
• Guilt by Association: The Culture of Accusation and the American Anthropological Association’s Investigation of Darkness in El Dorado Thomaas A Gregor and Daniel R Gross, American Anthropologist, December 2004 (pdf)

Teaching Two opposing articles debating the claims contained within Darkness in El Dorado

• Bruce Alberts and Patrick Tierney
  • Setting the Record Straight Regarding Darkness in El Dorado A Statement from Bruce Alberts, President of the National Academy of Sciences, November 9, 2000
  • Response to Dr. Bruce Alberts, President National Academy of Sciences by Patrick Tierney

Teaching Three opposing articles debating the claims contained within Darkness in El Dorado

• John Tooby, Patrick Tierney, and The Editors of The New Yorker
  • Jungle Fever: Did two U.S. scientists start a genocidal epidemic in the Amazon, or was The New Yorker duped? by John Tooby , Slate.msn.com, Oct. 24, 2000
  • Response to John Tooby by Patrick Tierney
  • The New Yorker Replies This article, by the editors of The New Yorker, is a response to “Jungle Fever,” which Slate published earlier this week. Slate.msn.com, Oct. 27, 2000

• Clifford Geertz and Leslie Sponsel
  • Life Among the Anthros by Clifford Geertz, New York Review Books, February 8, 2001
  • Sponsel Reply to Geertz Review by Leslie Sponsel
  • ’Life Among The Anthros’ New York Review of Books, by Terence S. Turner, March 30, 2001

Teaching about the American Anthropological Meetings, November 2000, concerning Darkness in El Dorado

• American Anthropological Association Documents
  • American Anthropological Association Executive Board motion on inquiry regarding Darkness in El Dorado At the February 3 & 4 2001 Meeting of the American Anthropological Association Executive Board the following motion was passed.

• Individual Statements
  • Statement read by Professor William Irons at the “Research Among the Yanomami” panel, American Anthropological Association meeting, San Francisco, November 16, 2000 Comment on Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon, by Patrick Tierney. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 2000. Bill Irons, Professor of Anthropology, Northwestern University
  • Comment on Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon Revised slightly Dec. 13, 2000., Bill Irons, Professor of Anthropology, Northwestern University
  • The epidemiology of infectious diseases among South American Indians by A. Magdalena Hurtado, Statement read at the “Research Among the Yanomami” panel, American Anthropological Association meeting, San Francisco, November 16, 2000
  • Summary of a statement made by Leslie E. Sponsel, former chair of the AAA Committee for Human Rights and previous Commission for Human Rights (1992-1996), at the open session of the last annual convention of the AAA in San Francisco on Friday evening, November 17, 2000. by Leslie E. Sponsel
  • Thomas Headland’s report to the AAA president by Thomas Headland, Hand-delivered to the president through the courtesy of Glen Baly, AAA Media Relations Manager, on November 16, 2000
  • Statement delivered at the Open Discussion, “Ethical Issues in Field Research Among the Yanomami: Part II,” 99 th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association in San Francisco, 11/17/00. by Gale Goodwin Gomez
  • Statement delivered at the Open Discussion, “Ethical Issues in Field Research among the Yanomami: Part II,” American Anthropological Association annual meeting, San Francisco, 11/17/00. by Linda Rabben

• Group/Association Statements
  • Statement of the Brazilian Anthropological Association read at the open discussion on “Ethical Issues in Field Research Among the Yanomami” at the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, CA, November 16, 2000
  • Statement Approved by the Board of Directors and Unanimously Passed by the Membership of the Society for Visual Anthropology, November 17, 2000

Teaching about information that is dated before the ‘scandal’ erupted, but have been cited as relevant to the debate that ensued.

• Annotated Index of Selected Documents and Correspondence from the Collection of James V. Neel’s Papers in the Archive of the American Philosophical Society Selected and compiled by Terence Turner and John Stevens Cornell University, Feb 2001
• Testimony of Samuel L. Katz, MD – to the Committee on Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives
• Some surprising benefits from measles immunisation that have nothing to do with measles protection ABC Radio International (9/28/95)
• The Yanomami Bluff and Other Myths brazzil.com
• Amazon Jungle to Ivory Tower News Item (pdf)
• Napoleon Chagnon’s War of Discovery Los Angeles Times Magazine (1/30/00)
• Napoleon Chagnon Warns about the Plight of the Yanomamö EurekAlert!
• Chagnon to donate research to MSU Minnesota State University, Mankato Reporter (10/27/98)
• Meeting the Fierce People, The Daily Nexus (University of California, Santa Barbara), January 20, 1988