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Explaining Culture Scientifically

by Melissa J. Brown, Editor
University of Washington Press, Seattle & London, 2008
387 pp. Paper, $ 30.00
ISBN: 978-0-295-98789.

Reviewed by Wilfred Niels Arnold
University of Kansas Medical Center

warnold@kumc.edu

The title is original and supposedly intended to elicit critical comparison with more traditional offerings, for example in social anthropology. The present volume contains 13 chapters by a total of 16 authors from U.S., Japan, Germany, Hungary, and Canada. Promotional material from the publisher claims that the contributors are prominent scholars in anthropology, biology, and economics. The editor, Melissa J. Brown, Ph.D., has been an assistant professor of anthropological sciences at Stanford University.

From the introduction: “The exploration of scientific analyses of culture in this volume is empirical. Each author examines empirical data about how culture influences behavior; shows, rather than tells, how to approach culture scientifically; and demonstrates how empirical and theoretical material can be integrated. Not surprisingly, given the pre-science phase in which we find ourselves, contributors approach their material from a range of viewpoints and methods across mathematical modeling and ethnographic empiricism.”

There are four parts to the book: What is culture, Modeling-based case studies, Ethnographic case studies, and Challenges to a science of culture. The editor includes an epilogue: Future considerations. About 800 references, in 50 pages, are ganged at the back. There is a 26-page index where names and subjects are mingled.

This seems to be an attempt to generate a “new field.” It may be attractive to a specialty group that is probably best represented by the contributors. The volume will find limited interest among readers of Leonardo.