In it, for instance, Tierney makes much of the fact that Chagnon doesn't reveal the names of certain villages he studied. It took me quite a while to penetrate Chagnon's data, but, by combining visits to the villages in the field with GPS locations and mortality statistics, I can identify nine of the twelve villages . . . Tierney could have saved himself all this trouble if he had simply looked at a footnote in one of Chagnon's scholarly articles, which reveals the names of the villages. He should know where to find it, because he cites it in his own book. Chagnon will remain a controversial figure, if only because he's a sociobiologist.
Every theoretician makes assumptions about the nature of human nature.
My critics prefer to believe in a myth of a golden age in which people ran around in the forest acting altruistically. If the Yanomamo are an authentic glimpse at what human prehistory might have looked like, of course, Sponsel's theory is dead wrong-and Chagnon's empirical observations prove it. And so, by the way, does the vicious behavior of Sponsel, Turner, and Tierney. National Review, Inc. in association with The Gale Group and LookSmart.