Greg Laden's Blog

I am astonished at how many "about" pages fail to mention the name of the blogger! So I'll start by mentioning that my name is Greg Laden. I am a blogger and writer and independent scholar who occasionally teaches. I have a very fancy PhD from Harvard (written in Latin and everything) in Archaeology and Biological Anthropology, as well as a Masters Degree in the same subjects (also from Harvard). I was awarded a Medical Doctorate from Harvard as well, but that was a clerical error and it was quickly revoked, much to the annoyance of my patients ...

My undergraduate degree in Anthropology is from the Regents College of the University of the State of New York, which is an individualized degree program. My academic advisors were Dean Snow and Bob Paynter, which probably gives you a good idea of what I was into at the time.

For some reason the previous paragraphs have enraged a number of readers. Harvard this, Harvard that. Why is the guy telling us he went to Harvard? If you are such a reader, let me speak to you for a moment. Well, the reason I'm telling you this and other things is because YOU clicked on "About" on MY blog. So you get a wordy version of my c.v., and I'm not going to lie on my c.v. just to make you feel better. I assure you that had I known you would be so offended I would have gone to what you might consider to be a lesser school, such as the one you went to. There, do you feel better now? Good. On with the show.

I am a biological anthropologist, but for many years before going to graduate school (did I mention that was at Harvard?) to study human evolution, I did archaeology in North America (some of that was done at Harvard). I think of myself as a biologist who focuses on humans (past and present) and who uses archaeology as one of the tools of the trade.

Recently, there has been a bit of discssion on the blog about what exactly an anthropologist is. Or, perhaps, what exactly I am. One commenter noted (on a post about geology) that I may not want to blog about geology since I'm an anthropologist, and another was surprised that I said something about working with rocks. Let me clarify. I am not a social or cultural anthropologist (though I've done way more fieldwork with living people than most people who call themselves such). Anthropology in the US includes Archaeology, Biological Anthropology (a.k.a. "Physical Anthropology"), Cultural Anthropology (sometimes called "Social Anthropology") and Linguistics (though these days many academic departments don't do Linguistics, or if they do they call it "Anthropological Linguistics" and it's more of a sub-sub field, part of Cultural Anthropology) and these days there is a crossover discipline called "Palaeoanthropology" which includes bits and pieces of Biological Anthropology and Archaeology with a bit of old time Cultural Anthropology and for many a certain degree of either Physics or Geology, depending.

Is that clear? Good. Where I fit in is like this: I'm a Biological Anthropologist who studies Human Behavioral Biology and Human Environment Interaction using, among other things, Archaeology as a tool, but with a strong background in North American Historical Archaeology, North American Prehistoric Archaeology in the Glaciated Zone (and thus with a fair amount of background in glacial geology) and an Africanist. A simple version of which I already said above but apparently these things bear repeating.

I had the good fortune of starting my thesis work with Glynn Isaac, and working with the Efe Pygmies in the Ituri Forest, of Zaire. Glynn tragically died while I was in the field from disease(s) he contracted while working in the field himself, but fortune smiled on me again and Irv DeVore kept me up and running long enough that I gained the distinction of being his last PhD student prior to his retirement.

I live in the northern reaches of the greater Twin Cities with my wife, Amanda. Amanda is a high school biology teacher. My daughter, Julia lives with us half-time. We recently produced a new offspring, named Huxley. We spend a fair amount of time in Northern Minnesota.

My most recent fieldwork has been in South Africa (if you are my Facebook friend you can see pictures), and I have many interests there including field survey and the development of what we might call "ecotourism" (but that is too simplistic of a term). With my colleague Lynn Simpson, we run an entity called "Bushrock" which provides customized tours for individuals or small groups. If you are going to South Africa drop me a line, I'll fix you up.

I have been involved in the evolution-creationism debate since God was a child (had he actually existed). Being married to a real-life biology teacher has given me a deeper appreciation of this end of the culture wars, where simply trying to do a good job teaching science is seen by many as a barrier to their salvation. More like a holy war than a culture war, isn't it?

Before joining scienceblogs.com, I blogged here. I still blog there now and then.

I've had other web sites before as well, including one at Harvard. Where I went to school (had I mentioned that already? Oh, sorry).

Nefarious Commenting Policy

Warning!!!!

Starting late in 2009, my blog has increasingly been used by nefarious forces as a staging area for unacceptable garbage. For instance, recently an anonymous commenter posted about ten items on race, each indicating ways in which it was scientifically proven that blacks are inferior to whites, with numerious implications of supporting data but not a single reference, and numerous unfounded conclusions. Also recently, anthropogenic global warming deniers started to use my blog as a link farm, a place to put links pointing to denialists sites, which then gives those sites higher rankings and more Google visibility, etc.

My policy is the following: I may or may not notify you with the statement reproduced below or something like this, and then have my way with you.

Statement to Annoying Commenters and Trolls:

You have been identified as an anonymous commenter who has begin to become annoying.

By anonymous, I do not mean "pseudonymous" ... I mean that you do not have an identity visible on the Internet other than your name as given in the comments you've made here, on my blog. By "annoying" I mean that you are not contributing substantively to the conversation, but you are making comments that are insulting to me, to other commenters on this site, or to someone else I care about, or that are otherwise inappropriate. As blog owner, I ask you to either take it down a notch, or to desist in your asshatitute, or there will be consequences.

Another way to be annoying is to use this blog as a place to push a nefarious agenda, to get your rhetoric or your personal attacks on me or mine in a good search position in Google. Perhaps you are a global warming denailist who wants to have statements about how global warming is not real come up more frequently in people's Google searchers, or perhaps you are a racist who wants your racist rhetoric to be more visible on the Internet by being on this site. The problem is, that is not what this site is for. I did not create this site to be your forum. I will publish any and all 'private' data (it really isn't private) that comes my way such as your email address, IP address, and so on if you use my blog in this way.

Most trolls like you will at this point insist that my blog IS your forum, either your private forum or some sort of public resource that it is your inalienable right to use. It is not. You will insist that it is my responsibility to provide you with a place to dump your shit. It is not. You might yell and scream about your supposed rights, making yourself a nuisance, hijacking threads and making this blog about how you have been victimized by me, and so on. You are not allowed to do that.

I have two response to this, and you are now on notice. Take heed:

1) The "private" data I collect from you... your IP address, etc. is no longer private. I never promised you that it was private, but I prefer to keep such things private. But now, starting today, your email address, any private communications you send to me, all of it, is mine to use as I wish, if you do not start to behave. You can avoid this situation by behaving or going away quietly.

2) I urge you to click on this link and start your own blog.

Sometimes I'm hard on an entire state. Like Texas. Or, recently, West Virginia.

It's funny when the slack jawed yokels who live in these god-forsaken shitholes get annoyed at that.

But seriously folks. I'm hard on your state for a reason. I do it for your own good. A state is a democracy. If you have medical care that is second only to a despotic third world war torn failed state, that is because it is what you vote for, what you strive for. If you have a state with a system of education that produces high school graduates who couldn't pass the entry exam to Romper Room and have no chance of going to a good college unless they happen to be one of the athletes you raise up and systematically traffic, then you got that way because that is what you vote for, what you strive for.

While you were busy clinging to your guns and your gods and that watery piss you call beer, other states were getting their acts together to have positive growth, clean and stable industry, a clean environment, excellent education, proper infrastructure, humane health care, etc. You know this new health care bill? Actually, a big part of the change that will happen is pulling your stupid-ass nuts out of the fire, because those of us who live in the progressive states fixed half those problems you are living with a long time ago. Yet you are the states that seem to be sending more than your share of testicle dangling tea-baggers to DC to complain about the very progress that is going to keep your 11 fingered offspring from the misery that your created environment imposes on them.

OK, maybe I'm overdoing it a bit.

But by now I think you get the point. If you are one of these backwards, anti-progressive third world states, I'm trying to do you a favor by humiliating you. I'm trying to bring attention to the fact that you could do better by changing your politicians, and in some cases, throwing off the yoke of one oppressive industry or another. We could just breed a lot more liberals and send them there, like we did to Virgina. Or we could ignore you and wait for some major natural disaster to mostly wipe you out, like happened in Louisiana. Yes, folks, certain things in Louisiana will probably be better after the hurricane than before, simply because people from out of state have gone there to do stuff. I don't know what we can do with a vast and heavily populated state like Texas. Except to keep up the humiliation.

If you were not dragging the rest of us down with you, I (and others) would not feel the need to do this. But you are, so we do. Deal.

Oh, and do feel free to say humiliating things about my state. Please do. We are the state who elected Tim Pawlenty as governor. We are the state that sent Michel Bachmann to Washington. We are very worthy of humiliation. We don't get enough of it. Please send some our way.

And stop whining about stuff I say about your stupid state. Stop whining and just fix it.

The Congo Memoirs

"Congo Memoirs" is a writing project in which I memoire stuff that happened while working and living in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, then known as Zaire. The first entry is The Zodiac.

I made several different trips to Zaire, mostly to work in the Ituri Forest with the Efe and other folks. However, I did spend one extended field season in the Western Rift valley working on an expedition that involved investigation of several (close to a dozen) different paleontological or archaeological sites. (Most of the work focused on four sites, two at Ishango, one at Senga and one at Kenyatsi.) The Congo Memoirs are about this trip, to the Semliki Valley in the Western Rift.

There are people who, if they knew I was doing this, would say "OMG, I can't believe he's doing this!!!! Call a lawyer!!!" (and I'm not exaggerating even a little). However, those people should be assured that my intention is not to expose infidelities (if any), describe horrid personality traits, or reveal ethical breaches. Not like any of those things happened, of course. Rather, I'm just telling the interesting bits that will not cause anyone any harm. For the most part.

Of course, one never knows.

So far, the Congo Memoirs consist of the following entries:

The Zodiac

The Big Park

Pirate Island

The Crater and the Crocodile

The Story of Wally the Waterbuck

Zorba and The Crew

How to make an elephant turn invisible

It Had to Be Snakes

The Lion That Ate The Earthwatcher

Peter and Greg Piss Everybody Off

Biker and Greg get Eaten by Lions

Fire On the Mountain

The Greg Layer

Kenyatsi. Place of evil.

A Hippo Runs Over Rudy

A Day In the Life (Bathing with the Hippos)

Out of the Flying Plain and Into the Fire (Congo Memoir)

The Mountain Giveth, The Mountain Taketh Away

If You Build It, They Will Fly Away

On Edge

Gunfire at Night

The Lion, The Tent, and the Anthropologist

Return Of The Green Pickup

Ready ... Aim ... Fire

The Crossing

The Empty Truck

Gunfire In The Streets

The Storm