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Do you love being an architect or is it overrated?

I love it, so much. The work is very fulfilling. Spatial, tectonic, and construction problems are enjoyable to solve; and the marriage of art and function uses both sides of your brain. Contrary to many rumors, I’ve always found great pay and low hours. I’ve been working for nearly 15 years, never had more than 40 hour weeks. I’m currently at a company that just went to 4-day, 32-hour work weeks. I always say, if you can’t live on $80K/yr than income is not the problem.

Yes, yes, and yes. However I'm lucky enough to be able to spend my time between teaching, research ,building, and designing and the constant swapping and shifting stresses are things I enjoy.

Is Drawabox REALLY going to help me draw better?

The point of the lessons is not to create pretty drawings. Its to excercise your brain to think in 3d among other things. The end result is not important.

I would say that it can help you learn to see a lot of information you would not otherwise see. I recommend paying $5 for drawabox cookies to get official critique. Coming from someone that completed all the lessons, I would say myself that I need a lot of work. I think only you have the power to become a better drawer than your past self. You should try to draw for fun half time spent drawing. Here is the thing, looking for inspiration is important, but you need to find it within yourself to make drawing a daily practice. Long story short I failed to learn to program in 2012 then started again in 2016 to only become a semi-good one in 2022. Draw with the intention that you can do it and are in it for the long run. And getting feedback on your drawings can’t hurt either. P.S. your English was good.

Am I Supposed To Rotate The Paper Each Time I Draw a Line In The Draw A Box Course?

Yes. Uncomfortable mentioned on his videos that it is quite essential at the early stages of your training you perfect drawing a line from a single angle to maximize the speed of your progress. Sadly in my hubris I didn't pay heed to this advice the first time and it delayed my progress by months. Work on these exercises while rotating the page. As your continue to draw your ability to draw straight from different angles will increase but stick to rotating the page. Yes it is sometimes a pain in the arse but definitely worth it in the long run.

I don't rotate the paper a full 90° each time, but I definitely move it (or me) about a fair bit.

Should I still use the sausage method for drawing legs even if a segment looks like a different geometric shape?

Your eyes can play tricks on you, especially when you're drawing from a photo instead of real life. If you view a sausage at a certain angle it does look straight like a cylinder, but the form is still curved. It helps to look at multiple photos https://i.imgur.com/tahJKFa.jpg In this photo the leg has a clear bend backwards. When you look at the bug from the rear you can't quite see it because the bend is going backwards and the leg has extra bulk. But the form is still curved, and when you draw it you should represent it that way.

Yes, still use sausage shapes. They will just be long sausages.

What are some of the more absurd journal article titles you're come across?

You Only Look Once: Unified, Real-Time Object Detection Yes, they called their framework YOLO. https://arxiv.org/abs/1506.02640

I came across a genetic screening approach called Big Papi yesterday 🤦‍♀️

What is the strangest thing that happened to you during your PhD?

Got bullied for 3 years straight, supervisor knew, confidential advisor knew, everyone knew. After officially transfering to another uni got an email from HR asking me to fill in a satisfaction survey and to include me in their “success stories”

I wrote a NIH career development grant that was supposed to be turned in by the grant office at my university. Months go by and I get some review comments back with scores- they were good but apparently it didn’t get funded. I call NIH program officer that was supposed to be in charge of reviewing my application- they have no record of a grant being submitted. Turns out the grant officer never turned in the grant and got the comments from some internal review process. Grant officer immediately resigns and I never get a explanation as to WTF happened.

How did universities do hiring, promotion, and tenure before “publish or perish”?

I've heard one senior faculty at a top school brag he's never had to apply to a single job in his life. Back in his day, he was just recommended to jobs by his seniors, who were extremely respected scientists

Supply and demand. The number of people applying for each position is now so much larger, so the competition is tougher. There is also now a lot more employment regulation meaning universities have to prove their hiring practices are fair, so they have to use criteria that have the appearance of objectivity such as citation metrics, rather than personal judgement.

Why do academics seem to loath their profession?

As a fellow Computer scientist I can tell you it's kinda depressing to be always short of money while everyone else is making enough to retire at 35. I love research I really do, but I love good food and traveling the world. If you can be an academic + a side job, money is not a big problem but you may burn out quickly.

Academia lures very smart people with promises they can research what they love and be recognized for their achievements. But day to day, even the good academic jobs are mostly teaching and administration. The more precarious positions are all that stuff for even less pay. EDIT: grammar.

Dating struggles as an older phd student...to date or not to date?

Age difference isn't there, you aren't his professor, godspeed.

My wife and I (of 17 years) met when I was a non-traditional undergrad and she was my prof. This is no longer allowed by our university (at the time, we had to set up a plan whereby she didn't grade my work or assign grades, etc.). I'm sure your university has rules to address student-staff or student-faculty relationships, and that there are HR people dying for somebody to ask them what the rules are. Give 'em a call, then you know where you stand! I agree with the other commenter that there are no ethical issues at all. Good luck on the PhD and the dating!

Why are all geology professors so nice?

hahah I've experienced this phenomenon, I was a geo major. My theory is based on how very aware geologists are of our laughably short presence on the geologic timescale. Maybe once you contemplate your insignificance you have more fucks to give in the "be a decent person" department and fewer in the "People must know my intellectual might! No time for kindness". Just a working theory on the matter.

Because they... rock. I'll see myself out.

Positives and benefits of a life in academia?

There are tons of positives. I have loads of flexibility in terms of my schedule and what I work on, I can change projects by writing new grants. I'm not limited by directing my work towards a commercial product. I love my work, my research and my colleagues. The challenges are always the leadership (inept at best, corrupt at worst PIs with zero project management experience) and the politics that inevitably come from overworked managers with no training on how to be one.

I wouldn't say love but I'm definitely happy with my life in academia at the moment. There are plenty of fun challenges like coming up with creative ways to explore your data. There's literally always more to learn that applies to your work in interesting ways. It is a very conducive environment for personal growth, you'll probably at least have to come to terms with feeling stupid and ignorant in academia and channeling that into learning rather than shame and resentment. You can't know everything and that will keep being true for you forever. Sometimes you're literally one of the first few people to know something new. And you probably won't notice it for days or weeks after the initial "that's weird, what does that mean?"

Does sitting for long hours on an academic job have made negative impacts on your health?

As a student in my early twenties, I ALWAYS regretted the times when I was "too busy" for exercise as it lead to back aches, fatigue, increased stress, etc. Over time, I found that regular exercise was beneficial for my physical and mental health so I highly suggest finding a good routine and sticking to it. Sometimes I go as far as prioritizing that over work because of the long-term benefits! Stay fit

Most campuses have a decent gym and places to go for walks. Don't feel chained to your desk. I was definitely guilty of spending too much time at mine. I got fat, got a bad back, and developed issues with my eyes. I decided to get away from my desk often and use the gym. I've admittedly been less productive but I'd rather be less productive and healthy than very productive and unhealthy.

Why is it called a faculty retreat?

no, there was just a typo. it should have read > faculty: retreat!

Just be thankful the organizers haven't announced that "we're calling this an advance, not a retreat, because we're moving forward!"

Why do people spend up to 6-7 years to finish a PhD in the US, compared 4 years in the UK?

US humanities grad program: three full years of course work after BA, then a year of study for comprehensive exams, then defending dissertation proposal, then 3-4 years of research/writing before a defense...that gets to you eight years. In History-- my field --the actual average is closer to ten years. This is due in part to limited funding, so those who need to do field/archival work often have to teach to cover cost of living and can't research full time...so it takes longer.

Off topic, but this reminds me of a smug someone I met before that thought his 3-year bachelor's degree from the UK was better than my 4-year bachelor's degree. He ended up not getting into a master's program at Ohio State because the university didn't deem his 3-year bachelor's degree to be equivalent to a 4-year US bachelor's degree.

Do you ever feel too dumb for academia?

Sometimes I don't think people should be allowed to be in academia unless they think they're too dumb for academia, at least on occasion. When I started my PhD I was lucky to follow 10% of the meetings I was in, even the ones about my own project. By the end of my PhD I still could only follow about 70 - 80% of what my advisors were talking about, and that was on a good day. I tell grad students that like 50% of doing a PhD is learning how to be comfortable with feeling dumb, knowing how to put things on a shelf that future you will figure out, because it's a skill to be gentle with yourself when you don't know things, especially when a lot of grad students have been high achievers their whole lives and don't know how to exist in a space where not knowing everything is not only expected, but required. Basically I make mistakes and feel dumb about something every single day.

Firstly, you're not 'dumb' at all. Some people are better at management than others, and it doesn't quite sound like you're getting the support you need to succeed here. Or you might just need more time to adjust to this environment. Keep asking questions, keep learning. Maybe ask for a sit down meeting with your supervisor to work through some of this?

Does anyone think universities are going to divide into a North v South* type response to coronavirus in the fall?

I don't know if it's going to be remotely that straightforward. My very liberal small college in a very red northern state, that has done very well with vaccinating so far, has already announced plans to return to on-campus instruction. So far as I can tell there is no vaccination mandate, but surveys of the campus community indicate > 90% vaccination intent, in-progress, or complete.

Really depends on what happens this summer and if we can get to universal mask-free indoors by the end of it. I think it's too early to tell, and where I live (Boston) it's still 100% masked the second you step out of your house/car, so there's really no trend toward unmasking yet to extrapolate.

Has anyone heard through the grapevine what the general trend is going to be for colleges requiring the COVID19 vaccine?

We were told that we couldn't require it because the authorization was currently under an emergency order, vs. whatever process is used for regular vaccines like measles. I know nothing about medical law so have no idea if this is true-- but that's what faculty were told when our reps specifically asked about fall. The vast majority of our faculty don't want students allowed on campus without being vaccinated. I assume this is going to play out over the next several months yet since we don't have enough vaccine for all anyway. In fact, in my state faculty aren't even being vaccinated yet because we're not considered "teachers" by the state health department.

My guess (worth less than the paper I'm typing on) is that most won't make it a hard requirement for fear of lawsuits and other complications like sorting out individuals who have legitimate reasons not to get it. Instead, it will be highly incentivized. For example, maybe students will be allowed to choose whether to return in person with the vaccine or continue online. Of course the online offerings will be extremely limited and mostly unpopular classes.

anyone have traditions for celebrating their academic successes?

I reward myself with a nice house plant. I have a lucky bamboo from the day I started my masters, a peace lily from the day I finished it, and various other houseplants for times i feel i made significant progress through my PhD so far!

I get myself a more expensive bottle of wine ($15 instead of the normal $10), and a slice of cheesecake, run myself a bubble bath, and switch off all screens for a night. Normally will have a meal with friends/my partner too. Celebrate everything! And congratulations!

Is a Harvard CV the standard for academia?

I would never reward someone with preference because their CV looks fancy. Hell my advisors CV is barely formatted. Looks like a to do list.

I have never heard of it as Harvard's format. Boring is best. When a student sends a colourful CV, it immediately conveys insufficient mentoring.

I recently found out my lecturer has been using a free coursera course to teach a course, is that okay?

Yes. There are several free open source text books available. We utilize a few of them at my university for certain classes. For instance, if your professor uses TopHat, all of their textbooks are open source which is why it’s so cheap. All you are paying for is the website with the homework. Also, for most undergrad classes, the subject matter hasn’t changed and if it does, we supplement with journal articles. It’s generally not until graduate school that you get specific enough to have an issue and most of the time you are almost complete reliant on journal articles in a graduate program or smaller books with very specific topics. Coursera is also open source material. (Professor of Chemistry)

What exactly would you like to freak out about. That the source material didn’t cost you anything to have slides? That they they didn’t come from the publisher. That your professor did not sit with a quill and hand write what are standard terms and diagrams etc for this class? What bugs you about it and why

Academics of reddit, how do you handle ignorance on the part of your partner in romantic relationships?

I don't see how this is particular to academics. Doesn't almost everyone have a SO who isn't as familiar with your own career-subject as you are yourself?

Get your head out of your ass? I'm just as ignorant about what my wife does for a living as she is about mine. We each have our own specialties.

What quality/thing/event made you accept that person as your PhD student?

I've never recruited a PhD student but I have supervised a lot of students and I've also recruited for a lot of positions including junior ones. It's difficult to fully articulate what makes a good candidate but the thing that makes you choose someone is they inspire confidence in you. You feel this is someone who "gets" it. I would say that feeling usually results from: 1) level-appropriate knowledge of the topic 2) enthusiasm for the project and a PhD 3) ideas, but not overly wedded to them 4) insight into how much of a slog a PhD will be and knowing that it's not all ivory tower thinking (as my UG supervisor always said, science is 1% inspiration, 49% repetition and 50% washing up). There needs to be a willingness to just get on and do stuff and a recognition it's a lot of work. 5) if it's STEM they have to show some ability to get on with people because they're going to be in a lab together and you need people not to be twats. Warning signs are: - people who come in with very strong ideas and are not willing to change - being overly confident - being very unclear about their motivations (I don't particularly care if someone wants to be an academic or not but I do want to know they aren't doing this because they couldn't think of anything else to do) - poor social skills - not really understanding what they'll need to do for a PhD and not really understanding what academia is (this is tricky because people from underrepresented groups often don't have a network who will explain it to them so you need to show some discretion here)

It's nothing as small as a single quality or moment. It's the same things everyone is looking for, really, and more or less the same things someone looks for when hiring an employee: Background: * undergraduate and masters degrees (and/or work experience) are appropriate background for the project * can clearly communicate their work in a previous project (e.g. a masters thesis), describing what they did, why, what the value and limitations of their work was. Can discuss the overall goals of the work, how it fits into a bigger picture, why certain approaches taken, what the outcomes were. Rationale: * sensible rationale for why they want to do a PhD in general, and why they specifically want to do *this* project with me & my colleagues. * knows from past experience what they like/dislike about different types of work, recognisess their own strengths, weaknesses, and needs, and can articulate why they think this is a good fit for them. * clear interest in the subject matter Compatability, initiative, and organisation: * has read through some related work (e.g. published papers) and clearly understand the basics * asks intelligent, thoughtful questions at the level I would expect of a beginning PhD student * good communication skills, both verbally and in writing * has done their homework on our PhD system (e.g. knows when the application is due, how/where to submit it, what's required, etc)

How to apologize to my professors for chronic absenteeism?

Do your professors know you personally or won't they even recognize your face/name? If so, a very polite and sincere email would be enough in my opinion. Also, I'm sorry about your situation OP, you are very brave and I wish you the best.

I relate to this story so strongly. I, too, became homeless my second semester in college. Along with a lot of family issues, work, and school, I was way overloaded. Mentally and emotionally I crashed. It took some time, but I clearly recovered and succeeded in my goals. Don’t be ashamed of how you feel. Tackle one goal at a time and you’ll make it out on the other side and not regret anything. No one can predict life’s twists and turns and which cards we get out of the deal, but having a good support team helps overcome moments like these. I’m glad you are reaching out about this. Trust your heart and follow your gut. You’re a strong individual.

How much choice do you have in where your job is as a professor?

I know one person who got to choose from a variety of offers. Everyone else (including me) went to the one place that hired them. That said, there were certain places I *didn’t apply to because I absolutely did not want to live there. I would have rather gotten no job than those jobs. So in that respect, there’s some choice. In the other respect, virtually no choice. You go where the job is.

Very little.

Why are Continental European universities generally ranked lower than USA and UK ones?

Well… rankings raise an annual controversy in France, and are heavily criticized by the EU in general… I think you nailed the main issues. I am not from humanities, but some tendencies we observe in natural sciences are also valid, I think. I can give you a few arguments, based on my own experience of French "elite" universities and British and American universities. Better ranked institutions are not necessarily better institutions. They are just better at the criteria THE or ARWU define for their ranking system. \- French elite institutions are tiny. By tiny, I mean about 2,000 students for an ENS, which is 10 times smaller than Harvard (\~ 22,000). This size effect is poorly taken into account: the smaller number of students and faculty members goes along with an overall smaller number of publications (and I'm not sure how the calculations account for this), but on the other hand, the high selectivity and smaller ratio of students/staff member allows a personalized and high-quality education system. For such small institutions, you cannot expect an incredibly high number of award-winning faculty members either, but this actual number is one of the criteria. So depending on how you weigh these different aspects, you can get different results. See for example this Nature news article (2016), which discusses the number of Nobel laureates/alumni. For that particular ranking, ENS Paris is actually ranked first, Caltech second, Harvard third. Roughly speaking, that would mean that ENS Paris admits few students, but they are quite successful. If you are interested, THE also proposed a ranking for small universities. \- ENS were initially created to educate future teachers in high school and higher education and prepare them for the corresponding (highly selective) diploma. A substantial numbers of students choose this path, and will not generate many research articles. This has a negative effect in the rankings that are heavily based on the research output. \- French research basically relies on a dual system: universities and CNRS. Contrary to university professors, CNRS researchers are funded by the CNRS, are not required to teach, and can be in any lab. Contrary to professors who devote more than 50% of their time to their classes, CNRS researchers' main (or even only) activity is research, so they contribute a lot to the total number of articles published by their lab. The problem is that even if the lab is hosted by a certain university, these articles are not taken into account for that university's ranking because these researchers' employer is the CNRS, not the university. \- As you said, there is indeed an English-speaking bias. First because articles in other languages are poorly taken into account and second because some ranking systems count the number of papers in Nature and Science (this is a whole different debate, but considering how publication in these journals is influenced by the level of English, and how using these journals as a criterion for the quality of the research is questionable, one may wonder how relevant this number is). I presume that the difference in rankings in humanities and natural sciences comes from the first point, as articles in English are common practice in Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology and less so in humanities. So in general, I concur with the EU criticism: these rankings "fail to represent the diverse and multifunctional nature of universities and their research activities accurately" (source). One issue they generate is the global effort to fit in the defined criteria to gain some reknown, regardless of the past history of success, and discourages the possibility of new and innovative systems that would focus more on education, students' well-being, or whatever other potentially interesting aspect. France is currently trying to merge structures together, just to get bigger numbers, and this results in institutions that don't make any sense... ​

My PhD advisor was European, was given job offers in Europe and the US, and decided to come to the US. There were a few reasons why: -The American universities offered millions of dollars in startup funds. -Graduate student funding was guaranteed through TAing if research funds couldn't cover them. I think it also helps that graduate students are group members for longer in the US (6 years vs 3 years in Europe means they can be more productive). -The facilities were top notch, although similarly high quality facilities could be found in Europe it was just a bit easier to get stuff done in the US (this is strongly field-specific -- obviously if you're working on the LHC you would would to make a lot of visits to Cern :p ). You might search for "European Brain Drain" or similar articles if you want to learn more about it.

Would it be bad for a young PI if their student goes to industry rather than academia?

It is more prestigious for PIs if their students go into academia. But that should have exactly zero impact on what a student decides to do with their life.

I also have a young PI (non-tenure) and most of the students in my lab are not interested in academia. They are pursuing jobs in industry, government, scientific writing, etc. Of course PIs are biased towards academia because that’s what they do but realistically most grad students eventually find a job outside of that.

How do I tell my supervisor I want to quit?

I have seen a couple of times this situation and the professors have always stayed super cool about the leaving. Just say it the soonest possible and be clear about how much and how long are you willing to help before quitting. For you might be the first time under this dilemma, but for a someone to reach a professorship has had to deal with people struggling about leaving academia several times, from friends to herself.

"Hey, I realized academia is not my thing and I am quitting."

1 year post-doc with very little to show: How do I recover?

Are you sure it is your fault, and not the position being too demanding? It took me a year to get my first results as a postdoc, and I don't think it is that unusual. Unless your postdoc is in the exact same field as your PhD, it takes some time to come up to speed in your new research area, and if you have moved between countries, that change takes some time to adjust to. Many people have had only intermediate results in their first year - I am not sure it is common to publish new results in a new field in the very first year, especially if it is all your own work and not a contribution to an already-established project in the new research group. However, this might be discipline-dependent - maybe expectations are different in your field. As someone said, looking for a new postdoc after one fruitless year shouldn't be that difficult, people might not like the job for various reasons - personality clash with their supervisor, finding oneself not a good fit in the group, even the weather (especially if it is the UK!).

If you are looking for a new position with less than 2 years of postdoc experience, the people hiring you will start off thinking that you and your PI didn't work well together. Could be personality, funding, or research difficulties. You will have to explain it on your next interview. Failing happens in science. Figure out why: * Was the project done correctly? * Was the overall hypothesis wrong? * Are you able to interpret the data? * Did your PI sign off on your project? If she did, you both failed together. If this is a work life balance problem, then you should find another position where you don't have to kill yourself 14 hours a day in the lab as *you don't want to have that lifestyle.* To sell yourself you should rock the current project you have and see if there is a PI there that can give you a recommendation.

What do you wish you knew--about your field, the job market, the costs of doing a grad degree--before you began your PhD program?

There are many success stories. There are some fraud stories. There are very few stories about how common divorce is in grad school, postdoc, the professorship. There are many professors with kids who are wrecks because their parents were too career oriented. There's a lot of mental illness and burnout. Also there's racism/sexism in academia.

PhDs are like MDs are like JDs - don't get one unless you specifically want the job that it trains you for. This sounds really obvious, but getting a PhD because "it sounds interesting" or "I don't know what to do with my life" or "my parents think I should have an advanced degree" are not good reasons to get a PhD. PhDs will push you and can break you because research is really hard, don't put yourself through you need the PhD.

What career options are there if I'd like to teach at a high level and avoid doing research after my PhD?

I'm in a non-tenure but permanent teaching position at a liberal arts college. I teach a 4/4 load. My TT colleagues teach a 3/3. I am not expected to do any research although I can if I want and there is support for it. There is a lot of teaching support. My university is discussing the possibility of making our teaching positions tenure track, but the evaluation would be on teaching only. I know some schools have TT teaching positions. For the record, even the TT faculty here get a lot of encouragement to focus there research on projects that include undergrads (no graduate program) and student involvement is weighted more than publishing. Feel free to PM me for more info. I love my job.

This is field dependent, but any tenure track position at my field is going to require some research, even at community colleges. It may be pedagogical research, or a research program primarily focused on undergrads gaining experience, but it needs to be something. If you don’t want to do no research, then teaching focused schools (PUIs) including state comprehensives and liberal arts colleges would be a good focus. Do keep in mind that pay will be a lot lower than more research focused faculty positions.

How do you cope with lecturing and teaching the same subject over and over for decades of your life even during times of personal crises?

How do you cope with boring meetings? Or anything that isn't necessarily enjoyable at work (which for most people is most of it). To an extent you switch off a bit; it's easy content. Also lecture content changes, and it's fun to add activities to classes. It's fairly basic education to vary different content types, deep vs. surface learning etc.

> With lots of students making jokes at you or making bad comments, people yawning, being disrespectful/mocking, interruptions, disturbances etc etc. Doing that for decades I had my first student do that the other day actually! Second class of the year. I think there's a degree of thick skinned//being a bit of a cocky bastard that I'm like 'nah this class's scores are at ceiling, this is their problem'.

What are some words you use everyday that's only used in your field/academia?

Aliquot, aliquot, aliquot. It's such a useful word! Why it isn't more common outside of academia is a complete mystery to me.

Peer and aspirational schools. People are all about what other institutions are doing. Original ideas don't get much traction, but if another school is doing it, well that's something worth thinking about.

What does "being a scientist" mean to you?

The other comments about the scientific method and figuring out things you don't know are totally correct, but there's a little something I wanted to throw in. It's a job. You will be in the lab (or not, if you're tenured) and have to drudge through little things that are boring or menial, and it will not inspire a NDT monologue in your head about the value of discovery and passion for travelling through the great unknown. It's the ideas that drive you, but the reality of how to explore those ideas still exists and sometimes it's not glamorous. I simply say this because you shouldn't let media or your peers convince you (maybe inadvertently) that if you don't have an orgasm every time you touch a piece of scientific equipment that you don't have what it takes. Hopefully you love your work, but it's only reasonable to not love every minute detail that goes along with it.

Understanding and applying the scientific method

"I agree that some serious work is needed...before this manuscript can be considered for publication" -->Meaning?

This is neither an accept nor a reject. It is a “revise and resubmit”. It sounds like some significant effort is required, but it will be worth it, because if you do a good job of it, the paper will likely be accepted.

My intereptation: if you address the majority of their comments it will be considered for publication. There are no guarantees and they may still pull the plug or ask for more after you resubmit. Yellow light imo. I would be cautiously optimistic if I were able to address all of their comments.

Would it be inappropriate/insensitive to ask my department coordinator to notify me in case of a certain professor's death?

You can always ask to be informed if he ever leaves the university, since you'd like to attend the retirement party. If the coordinator mentions other ways of his "leaving the university" you ask be told of those as well.

Set a Google Alert for his name. When an obit eventually appears, you'll see it right away.

How do you respond to low quality PhD proposals?

My first PhD proposal (UK social sciences) was bad. Part of the problem was that I simply had no idea of what a PhD proposal should include. Once I got initial (scathing) feedback from one programme I worked hard the following months to improve the proposal, submitted it to a different potential supervisor, and was successful in getting funding. I'm now a lecturer, so I have managed to redeem myself, but I just needed that initial feedback that told me (rather harshly, but accurately) why my proposal was uncompetitive. Now I am not saying you should work closely with all 50 potential candidates who contact you. But are there any particular helpful resources that you could point people towards? Online advice or sample (successful) proposals in your area for example? Then you can say: 1. Sorry, you're unlikely to be successful in our programme; but 2. If you want to try some other universities / potential supervisors, then here are some resources to help you further strengthen your proposal.

Your instinct to be candid about why they don't qualify is right on. Being obscure on that point leaves them perplexed and without a better direction. But doing so kindly and constructively is good for everyone. I've seen the phrase "unlikely to be successful in our program" used in a way to indicate that their needs don't match your capabilities. That can be done so it doesn't mean "you're hopeless" but "someone else is better able to help you". It is also pretty common to say something to acknowledge how competitive a slot in the program is, so while they have merit, others were a better fit for the few available openings that you have. Again, phrasing it to avoid having it read as "you are hopeless" is important.

How to pursue a PhD without feeling like (being) a massive financial burden to your SO?

I married when I was 20\* and have been married through a lot of seasons of life. I don't feel qualified to give advice on a lot of things but after 14 years and watching countless divorces (military couples divorce constantly and messily), I do feel qualified to talk about this... It is easier said than done but you need to let go of the notion of marriage being "equal." If you are pursuing a PhD, this will be a season of life where he supports your family financially more than you do. And here's the rub...you may never financially catch up. I don't know what fields you are in but you might spend money and time getting a PhD that never financially "pays off." BUT, if it is something you want to do to be the person/teacher/researcher/whatever that makes you happy, it will be good for your relationship in the long run. A lifelong relationship should be a space that creates an environment where you can thrive and be the best version of yourself. That is not to say that it is without sacrifice or stuggle on occasion but that, on the whole, you are happier and more fulfilled together than apart. When I met my husband, we made the exact same amount of money (we did the same job in the military). I got out of the service and all of a sudden that balance was waaaayyy off. Then for a little while after I finished undergrad, we were again equal. Now? I am an unemployed PhD student/stay at home mom. In three years, I hope to have a PhD and he will retire and mostly stay home. Ebb and flood, my friend. Marriage is a partnership but not necessarily a balanced scale. Settle in and focus on being a good partner, not a financial equal. \*I am very happy but I do not, for a second, think getting married at 20 is a good idea. It worked out for me but it was insanely stupid. I joke often that, every once in a while, someone jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge, lives, and comes out with a new lease on life. That's awesome but honestly, therapy and medication would have been a better choice. Just because I'm happy doesn't mean most people don't turn to jello when they hit the water.

I personally would not have pursued a PhD without a full scholarship because of this very reason. As supportive as my partner is, I would’ve felt as if I wasn’t progressing, or contributing, and as if I wasn’t able to help save for our future house and children. I didn’t want three years of financial insecurity.

What Challenges Am I Facing If I Try To Become A Professor After 46?

If you are independently wealthy and have a revenue stream already in place for retirement, then go for it: probably you will struggle more than younger PhDs on the market afterwards, but smaller colleges, CCs, VAPs, etc., will consider you. Econ is a relatively good job market. You’ll be 15-20 years older than most of your classmates and older than some of your professors, though: don’t be the mature student who tries to dominate conversation or resents being taught by someone younger. If you are going to need to earn money in the future to support yourself or your family, though, this plan is very risky. I would say “madness” if you were in the humanities, but with a PhD in econ you could probably fall back on private sector work if the job search is unsuccessful, albeit with 5-8 years’ lost wages and seniority.

I entered a PhD program in applied economics and there were a few people in their 40s who entered (and finished!) the program. They had to be at least 46 when they finished. So it's definitely doable and I don't think they discriminate on age. I believe they are all going for faculty jobs at R1 schools too (it was a top program). One thing I'll mention is the financial aspect. If you have a family, will you guys be able to be supported on just your wife's income? A PhD in economics is very very hard and you won't have time to do a part time job if you want to be successful. I'd assume the funding you'll get as a student with your stipend will be around $2k/month. Another thing to consider is do you want to do research? I don't think you noted if you've done a master's in math or Econ, but doing a master's and writing a thesis could be a good gauge to see if you would want to go into research and get a PhD.

How common (or possible) is it to defer entry to a PhD program?

I deferred for a year after I was accepted to my PhD program. But it was in 2009 right after the economy tanked so they couldn't offer me funding when I was originally accepted. I deferred for a year, told them I couldn't go if I wasn't funded and then got funding the next time around. In general it's not ideal to defer but it happens.

Here, not an option. PhD lines are a fickle beast and profs have grants that need students NOW not later.

How does grad school affect your romantic life?

We just gave each other false hope that # of publications is correlated to romantic success. It's risky to date someone from the same lab. Or even the same department.

I treated it as a normal job, and I found it not a problem to find anyone to date, etc.

Chair ghosting me?

It's not unusual for a sabbatical faculty member to be aloof, but to miss deadlines for fellowships and things you need is not acceptable. You need to talk to the DGS, chair of the department, probably the only person that can give repercussions. If the DGS knows what they're doing, they will anonymize this in such a way that it is not directly at you specifically.

Have you tried talking to your DGS or the chair of your department?

Committee Members: What percentage of our theses and dissertations do you actually read?

I don't teach graduate students, but I sit on undergraduate honors thesis committees every year. Their projects are shorter-- 100-150 pages typically in the fields in which I work --but we read multiple drafts and provide written feedback each time. It would be extremely unprofessional for anyone to approve/disapprove a thesis that had not read carefully, at any level of degree.

Just the good parts. I kid - I kid. I'll read the whole thing each time I get a draft, but obviously my comprehension varies by section. I won't offer nearly as many comments and suggestions on portions of literature or methods I'm not an expert on.

How many hours do you work on a regular workday?

Such an interesting question! For a while I used the "Forest" app as a kind of pomodoro technique and turns out the actual productive time is a lot less than one might think. I think on really good days I had about 4-5 hours of only working, although usually less (on an 8hr work day). I was reading some kind of news article recently where they said humans only work 2-3h productive hours a day on average (excluding all the little breaks, browsing, distractions etc) though..

Hi there! I clock my productive hours only and tend to work between 4-6 hours Monday-Friday. Most days this occurs over an 6-8 hour period. I am a ECR lecturer in psych in the UK.

How do grad students find funding in the humanities?

Most good philosophy PhD programs provide funding for about 5 years out of the BA (typically 2-3 years fellowship and 2-3 years TA). This should include a complete tuition waiver and a reasonable stipend. Coming from an MA, the math would be a bit different, but you shouldn't have to scrounge for cash getting a philosophy PhD. To be honest, unless you're independently wealthy, I would not consider a program that doesn't offer this. The job market is far too uncertain.

I’m funded by the government and my institution, and I do some teaching on top of that. Usually the best way to find funding is to look at where the people you want to work with get money from and see if there’s grad funding to be gotten

Is it worth it?

Don't do a PhD unless you need one to achieve your goals. If you're not sure what your goals are, don't enter a PhD program until you do. Also, you should *never* go into debt for a PhD. A school that actually wants you in their program should offer you a full tuition waiver plus a small stipend in exchange for you working in their lab and/or teaching classes. If not, it's not worth it. You also expressed concerns about having to move. I don't know about cognitive science/psych specifically, but in many fields, if you want to go the professor route, plan on relocating often. You'll move to where the PhD program is, then after you get your PhD you can except to move about very 1-3 years chasing postdocs and visiting professor jobs until you get a tenure track position (*if* you get a tenure track position, most never do). If you do go the PhD route, make sure you develop skills and experience to be competitive for industry jobs, not just academia. The academic job market is insane - literally hundreds of applicants for every full time job opening. If you plan to pursue an academic career, you would be very wise to have a backup plan.

I (23F) will (hopefully) be starting my PhD this coming fall. The advice I've been given is only do a PhD (or any degree additional to the one you have) if you know that doing a PhD will get you (closer to) the job you'd like to have. For me, my (current) dream job is a research scientist position with the Canadian government - and these positions generally all require a PhD (so I know doing a PhD is likely a good choice). If you don't know how a PhD will help you in your career, then it may be worth thinking twice before committing to a 3-4+ year PhD program.

Did you make close friendships in grad school?

I'm a non-lab person. I have one friend from grad school. We meet every so often for coffee. I interact with a few others online, but that's it. I think for non-lab people, the experience of a PhD is much more solitary. You write by yourself. You conduct research by yourself. You analyze data by yourself. You teach undergraduates by yourself. You grade their papers by yourself. Also, the few people I know who got tenure track jobs had to move far away, and are constantly busy (or at least pretending to be constantly busy) traveling for research and conferences. The vast majority didn't get tenure track jobs, however. Most of us did not end up where we expected, and I think being around each other would remind us of that. Or at least, for me it would.

Definitely. My entire cohort stays in touch and we make a point to visit when we're in the same town. We've been to (or in) each others' weddings, etc. Several are very good friends.

Conferences canceled due to Corona virus?

I'm stranded in a country after they cancelled my next conference in Europe. Already exceeded this year's travel budget, so I get to either have a surprise vacation, or I get to pay 630$ out of my own pocket to go home. Haven't decided yet.

I'm scheduled to attend a conference on the west coast of the US during the last week of March - still waiting to hear if it will be cancelled. I've got another one in Oregon in July and I'm wondering if that one might happen as well...

As a current Ph.D.​ candidate​ should I use my university's letterhead for a cover letter for a job application?

People seem to have very different opinions about this and opinions range between "inappropriate" and "mandatory". There was a thread about the same topic recently (but faculty-level application): https://old.reddit.com/r/AskAcademia/comments/9v2bq9/ft_faculty_would_you_apply_for_other_jobs_on_your/?st=jqfm5eal&sh=f754b68d The general rule that I learned is that you should use your institution's letterhead for official business related to that institution (that's Germany, chemistry). Job applications are not official business related to your institution, but rather your own personal business, so you should use your personal letterhead instead. Keep in mind, though, that whether you use your institution's letterhead or not most likely won't be the deciding factor in whether you get the job or not, so don't fret about it too much.

When I followed that advice and luckily got accepted on one of my first jobs after PhD, my head of department later commented on how weird it was for my letter to have a letterhead, seeing that officially I was a student and not a faculty member. Thankfully she ignored it and put it down to naivety. This was Australia, social science. So yeah, I'd say the advice was either discipline or region specific. Why not just follow the herd practice of your discipline/peers?

How do you deal with a supervisor who changes his mind constantly?

This sounds all too familiar - really sucks that you’re having to go through this. In my experience, that best way to handle it is to prepare some contingencies ahead of time. With the examples you provided, some of the things I would do: 1) For the figure situation, I usually prepare three drafts. One of them is deliberately flawed, and I present it as my first thoughts but that I hate it personally, then I provide two variants with different colour schemes and such, and present them as “not being sure what I think looks best, and could he provide me some guidance”. Stroke the ego, give an illusion of choice, and usually you get a better reception. 2) When it comes to analysis, and someone changing their mind about analyses, I find it’s best to keep all your work, and present the contrast between different methods. Not only is it good scientific rigour, but it also allows them to see all the angles at the same time. Then you just date stamp your work, so if they choose the previous analysis, you can raise a polite and respectful question that goes something like this: “Okay, that’s good - I did those analyses earlier. I’m a little unsure how I would choose between them - could you explain it to me?” That forces our PI to justify how they came to their decision to themselves, and it means that next time something like that comes up, you start the discussion with “I remember how last time we dealt with this sort of data you told me [whatever they told you], so I’ve done the analysis how you like it to be done”. All of this sort of stuff sucks, and it makes you second guess yourself, but I find that if you have a strategy for dealing with a difficult person, you can take back a tiny measure of control that helps you feel a little more at peace with your world. Don’t give up - and best of luck to you!

I had a similar experience with a supervisor and it only became worse as the rotation went on. In the end I had to file a grievance against him bc his constantly shifting expectations were holding up my ability to complete my internship (we had to have 6 reports completed and with a month left of the internship I had completed 3 with other supervisors but he was refusing to sign off on ones I had completed and edited 4+ times). I would recommend finding a mentor in your program if possible. Having another supervisor for my minor rotation helped recognize the situation wasn’t ok and I needed to do something about it. Good luck. You’re not stupid, you just have a really shitty supervisor. Try to find time to engage in the part of science that brings you joy, even if it’s more passive, like watching a documentary on a topic you’re passionate about. Feel free to reach out if you need to talk to someone whose been in your shoes.

TT Faculty searches volume of apps during COVID?

I’m chair of a psychology search and we had fewer applicants than last year (and definitely fewer than expected). It was initially confusing to me but now I think it makes sense because most of ours were not from other academic jobs but were straight out of a postdoc/grad school. I’m guessing fewer people are willing to leave their jobs, fewer jobs are advertised, and more people are staying ABD since they’re not bringing in as many grad students this year either.

If they post something very close to the deadline, they may be doing a search where they already have the preferred candidate. Sometimes this is done because immigration procedures are a pain in the you know what. We did a search earlier this year (not in stem), we had many incredibly qualified applicants.

What keeps someone a professional adjunct for long periods of time, in spite of all of the horror stories?

How can you not see how this happens, it is the sunk cost fallacy in its finest, people want a good job they have aspired to and could easily do but so it is always round the corner. As a person with a Masters the exact same thing has happened to me, I have been looking for a Research Assistant/Research Technician Position for the last year, had a few interviews only not to get any of the jobs, now I don't even get interviews, for jobs that I quite literally did my Masters Project on. Each day the person become less and less skilled and more and more qualified candidates show up, if someone had been kind enough to mention that there are actually no jobs for all these people doing PhDs and higher degrees, that would have been nice so all these people stop wasting their money and time on them.

So you complete your PhD. You're wanting to get a TT type position. You get offered an adjunct position you take it. All that while you are convinved you are improving your CV and improving your chances of a successful TT application. That contract ends, you can't find a TT post, but another adjunct comes up. You take it, because you're nearly there now, and one more won't hurt. That one ends, and at this point you've invested so much time and effort it seems that the TT position must be so close. Another adjunct year. That one comes to a clsoe. at this point you can't imagine cutting your losses - you've invested too much blood sweat and tears to quit now...

Suit for a PhD interview?

I'll add to the others' thoughts and emphasize that whatever you do, whether suit or sweater or something else, make sure that what you wear is something you're comfortable in. Don't wear anything that makes you too warm or that's too tight or just somehow annoying. You want to be completely comfortable so that you don't have to worry about your clothes being irritating on top of all the general stress of an interview process.

Wear the suit. You can always take off the jacket. You probably will be meeting the dean, and they might be from a more formal discipline.

Is it true that pre-colonial Yoruba culture was genderless?

My wife is Yoruba, and is a Yoruba speaker, so I actually get to hear the language spoken on a day to day basis. As you have said the language itself does not have gendered pronouns, but it is not quite true to say that the language is genderless, as you can still describe someone as male, female, masculine, feminine, as a father, as a mother, as a wife, as a husband, as a son, as a daughter and so on, and therefore the language is still armed with the necessary tools to proscribe gender roles. It is just that a person may say "That one is a mother" rather than "She is a mother" for example. You may be interested in looking into the traditional religion to gain some hints about pre-colonial Yoruba culture, as attitudes to gender might be preserved in the attributes of that pantheon. It centres around the Orisha (òrìṣà), a huge (and some traditions say 'endless') number of gods and godesses. They are portrayed as having a certain gender, and the gender is often related to the profession or trait held by that Orisha For example Ògún is the Orisha of metalworking and martial prowess, and is depicted as male, as is the Orisha of hunting Erinlẹ̀ (who was also a kind of doctor to the gods, busy guy!) so we can see evidence here of culturally percieved 'jobs for men'. On the other hand we have Ọtìn, a river godess, and wife of the above Erinlẹ̀. Ọbà, orisha of domesticity, is portrayed as female, and Ọ̀ṣun, presiding over beauty and intimacy, is also feminine. On the less proscriptive side you have the Orisha of twins, Ibeji, depicted as a pair of twins, one male and one female (Twins are very prominent in Yoruba culture, due to the notably high twinning rate for Yoruba people. There are even a culturally traditional set of names given to twins based on the order of birth). I would argue that a depiction of a 'set' containing both genders suggests a society that does in fact recognise gender. However, there ARE some Orisha that are genderless, such as Olukun, the diety of the sea, depicted and described as genderless. Most importantly, the god of all gods, Olodumare, the omnipotent creator, is genderless. In balance though, despite these examples in language and religion, I don't think we can say that Yoruba *culture* was truly genderless pre-colonialism. It may be fair though, to say that the gender agnostic elements of language and religion suggest that it was not taken as given that all things must be either male or female, and that this, in combination with a pantheon that contained a very wide number of both male and female Orishas, could have contributed to a society with more balanced gender roles. Yoruba culture is very deep and rich, and it is really nice to see people taking an interest and asking questions about it, so I couldn't resist contributing an answer. My own desire to learn more comes from the fact that, while I am English, my children will be half Nigerian, and I want to make sure I can represent to them the whole truth about who they are, and where they come from.

Dr. Oyewumi has asserted that the relative lack of gendered expressions, and the abundance of age-based expressions with respect to hierarchy and social status, is indicative of a cultural focus on age rather than gender roles. However, it's important to note that a lack of gendered nouns or expressions in a language doesn't equate to a lack of the *concept* of gender. Nor do I believe that Dr. Oyewumi's intent is to suggest that the concept of **a woman** did not exist in Yoruba. Gender roles are thought to arise from basic distinctions between men and women in the biological process of procreation, and while they vary from culture to culture, the idea that any culture lacks some kind of *concept* of gender is false. The question here is whether there are universal gender categories, and it's become abundantly clear that there are not. While the Western interpretation of gender roles *did* find their way into colonized cultures like the Yoruba, the notion of gender as a concept-- that is, that men and women are different-- is not purely a Western one. Dr. Oyewumi's interpretation has been criticized as overly dependent on linguistic analysis as a window into pre-colonial Yoruba society. However, the critique that Western colonial powers imposed much of their cultural viewpoint, including gender roles and status, onto the people and cultures whose land they seized / colonized is very much accurate. I also think that the text shown in that meme (a "guilty pleasure" sub, huh? Ugh.) is an oversimplification that's ripe for misinterpretation, which is what I think is going on here.

Guns, Germs & Steel - can I trust ANY of it??

***"The problem isn't just in what Diamond has written, but how it is used and understood, Friedman says***. "People think that when we say these things we are either (a) calling Diamond a racist, or (b) calling them racists for liking Diamond. We are doing no such thing. We are saying that the kinds of environmental arguments Diamond uses are a problematic way of addressing racism." (bold and italics added for emphasis) I'm a cultural anthropology PhD student, but I think Diamond is worth considering as the consequences of how we summarize and explain things to general audiences. It's been a long time since I've read Diamond years ago as an undergrad, but the jist that still sits with me is that *why yes, environments do affect the way people and societies in them develop.* However, I think that it leaves a lot of agency (and culpability!) out of the hands of people themselves. For instance, Diamond's coda on Japan argues that agriculture didn't "appear" until rice crops reached a critical mass of development where they were adapted to the colder, drier climate of the Korean peninsula. That made sense to me as an undergraduate and I even wrote a paper on it. But in my own seminar work as a PhD student, it became apparent that the answer is much more complex - and while environment is a factor, Diamond got some of the details backward and forgot to consider peoples' agency. *(It wasn't the crops needing to be adapted, but rather local environmental fluctuations and political/civil unrest that was happening around the same time that encouraged people to move and find new places like the more hospital parts of south Japan right across the Tsushima Strait).* And from a sort of broad, superficial appearance of things (breadth over depth) it makes generalizations that "look okay." But the problem with that is we can't assume that general audiences carry the same big mental asterisk that comes with these generalized assumptions. So my suggestion would be to approach any of these popular history/social science books the same way we might think about how a topic is taught in 3rd grade, 6th grade, and 12th grade, and college. Diamond's intent to broadly interweave a lot of information and cover a lot of ground is admirable, but the problem is that when you write to a popular audience you can't or forget to qualify your generalizations. The problem with something like Diamond is that unlike Bill Nye or Mr. Wizard, Diamond isn't just simplifying scientific principles that sound like "technobabble" to people. He's minimizing complex socio-cultural actions and their consequences as circumstances of environmental causes. And that erases human agency, colonialism, imperialism, etc. Don't rely on popular books to be authoritative. Use them as a starting point... Diamond doesn't have a long list of citations, but Wikipedia does. :)

I've heard a lot of similar criticism of Guns Germs and Steel on this sub and I think what the guy said in essence is Jared Diamond isn't qualified in any way as an anthropologist to write such a text. His actual background is in geography and from what I understand this seeps into the work because of the overemphasis he puts on geographical or environmental factors into colonization in GGAS. It's oversimplifying a very, very dynamic scholarly conversation. My two cents would be that I'm sure there are certain parts of what he writes that are still factually true, but this all-encompassing critique makes it such that the problem with the text isn't the bug, it's the feature. The sheer perspective of Diamond is flawed and how he writes is informed by a very strong bias and is unqualified to adequately and holistically discuss such complex subject matter. I also read him early on in my discovery of anthropology and I think his oversimplifying of such topics can be really comforting. There's a reason why his book is so widespread in undergraduate courses. He's a compelling writer with a great narrative through line and shares a different historical perspective. Again, I'm sure there are a lot of parts of the work that you should still ponder on, especially because the book seemed to have a profound impact on you in coming to this field, but I would say to view it as a great first step venturing into an exciting field with a multitude of highly compelling and academically sound writings by other academics who you can now expose yourself to. I definitely want to hear a more expanded discussion so I'll keep an eye on this post hoping more folks from this community engage with it, but I guess .

I'm going to be leaving for fieldwork in French Polynesia at the end of this month and will be staying with a host family for a month--does anyone have any recommendations as to gift ideas for my host family?

I did fieldwork in Polynesia (Samoan islands) and cases of corned beef (usually brands from New Zealand) were popular for gifts to hosts and generally to friends or family members. I also brought things that were harder to find that my host family really appreciated, like homemade canned plum jam/preserves (from my family's orchard), ginseng tea and other types of loose leaf tea, etc. Cases of nonperishables are a great choice. While I lived there I would buy foods and cook special meals for them, but this may depend on your family. As a guest, some may not want you to cook or contribute to things like chores.

I’ve found, on other pacific islands with perhaps less affluence than French Polynesia, that they really appreciate things they can also gift and share. For instance:in Fiji people really appreciated chapstick(I brought a multipack with spf to give to accommodation workers outside the main island), in raro they absolutely loved deflated soccer and rugby balls with the small pump, packs of squash balls and packs of pencils with sharpeners and notebooks and ask if they’d deliver them with you to a small school or church. Small toiletries. Sunglasses, goggles, enamel pins and cute stickers. Sweets with a high melting point and packaged cookies(the packaging sucks but multi packs go further). Craziest thing they enjoyed most was pancakemix (a lot of people don’t have ovens for cakes and cookies) but they have eggs and oil and cooking surfaces and absolutely enjoyed them and I left the rest there. People will absolutely enjoy t-shirts as well. Reusable items would also be appreciated I bet. I would see if there are any volunteer travel or missions forums/posts that address these types of expensive and difficult to obtain sundries there that we have easy and affordable access to not being in the middle of the ocean. Consider asking the coordinator of your course what small things they’ve found that were appreciated. Have a great time. The people in the pacific are fun. It’s more conservative than you’d think so act accordingly to be safe.

My toddler is obsessed with trains: What occupies young children's imaginations in pre-industrial societies?

There are very few writings from Ancient Rome about the daily life and thoughts of children and almost none focused on those under seven when they would start to socialize. But it should be safe to assume that children could be obsessed with anything you can think of. There weren't trains and airplanes, but there were horses, chariots, and ships. There weren't football stars, but there were famous athletes. There weren't movies, TV, and radio, but there were plays, concerts, and shows. And those are just some of the more "exciting" obsessions. Note: the following is focused on the children of relatively wealthy Roman citizens.] Today, many children are obsessed with animals, and we can see that in Ancient Rome too. Marcus Cornelius Fronto writing to update his son-in-law, Gaius Aufidius Victorinus, about Victorinus's young son, in circa A.D. 164: >He is very fond of grapes: it was the very first food he sucked down, and for whole days almost he did not cease licking a grape with his tongue... He is also devoted to little birds; he delights in chickens, young pigeons, and sparrows. I have often heard from those who were my tutors and masters that I had from my earliest infancy a passion for such things. [[source] See also: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3292469 There are mentions and some depictions of children playing all kinds of games, swimming, fishing, building sand castles, playing with dolls and toy soldiers, and playing all types of sport. And we can find examples of developing a fondness for leadership during childhood: >It is a topos of ancient biography that children who grow up to be powerful adults were often the leaders in games they played as children, thus predicting their future positions. Poor Rufrius Crispus played at being an emperor and a king, but Nero was his stepfather and this proved to have been a bad idea: he ended up drowned by his own slaves (Suet.Nero 35.5; see also Wiedemann 1989: 49–83 on imperial children). And on the negative side of obsession, there are writings about children heading for a life of excess and depravity concerning food, sex, violence, and money. Horace wrote in his *Satires* about his worry over his son hording knucklebones (analogous to jacks) and nuts that were won at play/gambling. --- Mary Harlow and Ray Laurence. *Growing Up and Growing Old in Ancient Rome*. 2002. Routlege.

Not exactly answering your question but I just covered this in my modern European history class. What we consider a “normal” childhood now, with toys, games, etc wasn’t really a concept until the Enlightenment era and during that time period it was restricted to the upper class. Before that, at least in Europe, kids were treated as workers which was related to the fact that families were also working units. So my point is that children didn’t have time or their imagination wasn’t fostered to obsess over whatever version of trains they had at the time. I read this in a spread of primary sources in the Sherman west in the world textbook, but I just started thanksgiving break and left it at school.

In Neolithic Europe (let’s say around 4,000 BCE) Do we have any indication of men/women performing outside of their roles?

Just wanted to add that not all hunter-gatherer societies adhered to the Man-the-hunter hypothesis. Women hunted too, and were also buried according to rituals that were reserved for hunters or warriors. I think in short it if fair to say that every society has its gender roles, but those roles are always (to some extent) fluid.

Be wary of now-ism. There's a fascination with contemporary notions of transgression, the most we can say is that gender roles were substantially consistent, with occasional exceptional examples. . . . to find a woman in a grave with weapons and armor doesn't necessarily imply a pattern of behavior. Consider the example of the Birka Viking grave, from around the year 1000 CE. This is just over a thousand years ago -- eg much more recent than the neolithic-- and we're still not sure of what would be meant by "gender role" in this case. The body is that of a woman, and there are military grave goods, nothing else like that previously recorded beyond a few weapons. Is this someone who actually was a warrior? There are folks who are eager to think so. But as we know from other graves, choices of funerary portrayal need not connote actual behavior in one's lifetime. This could be a Brienne of Tarth, or it equally could be some much admired woman, given a heroic burial an aspirational warrior rather than an actual one. Was it something inspired by the Norse Edda -- the Valkyrie were a popular story, and one doesn't know what the meaning of the associations might be. 4000 years earlier into the neolithic, it's even harder to know. It takes more than one off examples to understand patterns of behavior, fascinating and suggestive as they may be. See: Hedenstierna‐Jonson, C, Kjellström, A, Zachrisson, T, et al. A female Viking warrior confirmed by genomics. *Am J Phys Anthropol*. 2017; 164: 853– 860. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.23308

Some questions about Neanderthals So, forgive me if this is the wrong subreddit but I think this is the closest place to somewhere I can ask these questions?

Neanderthals were a bit shorter, barrel-chested, and had stockier limbs. Estimates of strength & athletic ability are going to be educated guesses. But based on the evidence from their bones, the average Neanderthal probably wouldn’t have been able to run as fast or for as long as a modern human. But they likely would have had really strong limbs and an unusually strong grip. So if we’re talking football, probably not good receivers, but maybe good offensive linemen. As far as the larger brains, this is true, they had slightly larger brains (5-7%). But they also had slightly larger bodies, and larger bodies need larger brains to run. There also seemed to be some interesting differences in the way their eyes worked. Neanderthals had larger eyes then modern humans, and the region of their brains that process vision was also significantly larger then modern humans. Not quite sure what this means; could mean they had sharper vision, maybe better vision in low light. But other parts of their brains, particularly the prefrontal cortex, seem to have been smaller. So overall they were slightly larger, but the real difference was the way their brains were laid out. As far as what the difference in brains mean as far as behavior, that’s kind of tricky to work out. Couple of things may point to differences in the way they thought. There are some indications of abstract markings, decorative use of feathers and claws, unusual shells or stones carried for long distances, and some indications of pigments used to color things. But all of these are few & far between, and none really reach the levels of sophistication that modern humans were doing. It seems Neanderthals were doing some abstract or decorative crafts, but not to the same amount or sophistication. Similar things can be found with tools. Neanderthals made some really functional tools, even developed a form of glue form birch tar. But we don’t find anything as sophisticated as, say a spear-thrower, or a laminar microlithic blade. This could just be an issue of preservation, but as more & more sites are really carefully excavated, it’s becoming less likely. Another theory is Neanderthals operated in smaller, more isolated groups, so ideas didn’t spread as much. They didn’t have the opportunity to build on one another’s ideas, so things stayed more basic. But piecing back together Neanderthal social life is a tricky thing. If you want to really dig into all the of the differences & similarities, I highly recommend Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, by Rebecca Wragg Sykes. It just came out a little while back, and it has the latest research & findings. The writing is also excellent and really brings Neanderthals to life.

The other stuff in your post I am not necessarily an expert in. However, about their intelligence it is insane to think they didn't have language. If you are interested about linguistics in archaic humans I highly suggest checking out Daniel Everett on this topic. Everett and others have shown that even Homo Erectus must have had language because of the linguistic requirement to be able to make boats.

Have most cultures valued precious metals and gems roughly the same?

It’s dependent mostly on the socio-cultural beliefs of a given society and how those beliefs shape their values. Some hold no value in metal and gemstones, others do. It’s also dependent on what type of economic system a society uses to facilitate the exchange of goods and services. Not all societies use money obviously! I believe Egypt is a good example, they valued lapis lazuli not for its rarity but for its deep blue color and spiritual significance. Take another example: gold. Half the world was ransomed for it once it became too rare. the fabled tale of the Ciudad de El Dorado (which likely doesn’t or didn’t ever exist) very well could have been based off of reality, there did once exist a society deep in the Amazon jungle, who were reported by Spanish conquistador accounts to literally throw their gold objects into the lake... As well as adorning their bodies and painting their bodies with gold pigments, a “royal” member would walk naked covered in gold into the lake as part of a ritual we dont know much about nor will we ever, as archaeological evidence of this society are scarce at best. (of course they took this to mean “these people have SO much gold theyre literally ThroWiNg it aWaY!” This isnt the truth obviously, but tells us alot about the formation of the El Dorado. Modern anthropologists and archaeologists posit that for this society, gold was valuable only to some extent, and viewed as having more utilitarian purposes than the way the Old World worshipped gold. It was just another pigment, just another metal to be shaped into items of adornment... still holding value but very plentiful, is it wasnt a.) cherished as old world societys did and b.) not necessarily having an economic system backed by gold/money/coins etc, this amazonian society didnt conceptualize it as “money” and instead had other robust economic systems (likely trade but i dont know as much about that, im a mayanist not a specialist in amazonian cultures) This is all info im trying to remember off the top of my head from a lecture I heard on this very subject about a year ago, but the professors name is gone from my mind so i apologize about that! I wish i had my source As far as gems, that I can answer! Depends on availability of gemstones within a given region and subsequently depends on the rarity of those gemstones in said area. For example, in the case of the preclassic and Classic Maya civilizations, jade was a very highly prized stone. It was painstakingly carved with merely a slurry of water and sand and some specialized tools by artisans who dedicated their lives to learning their art, some even carving intricate Mayan Glyphs (the written form of the ancient language) into jade. Additionally, it was used to make earrings, piercing gauges and spools through the ear and lip, small beads of jade could be strung together to create necklaces bracelets and other forms of sewn jewelry. It could be made into a multitude of prestige body adornment and in some cases was even inlaid into teeth!! Of course, this was only worn by the most elite members of society, as jade was considered by the Maya to hold spiritual importance and could only be worn by those with royal blood. I could go on and on, but past this point has little to do with your question haha so i’ll get back on track. While not considered a “gemstone” per say in the old world, Chinese, Japanese, and other East Asian civilizations did also prize jade for its range of colors and lusters as well and made beautiful prestige objects with it that not only denoted class but were also feats of craftsmanship only rivaled by the Maya imho The Mayan have not been shown to craft any prestigious “riches” of their culture with much else besides jade. Sometimes other stones like obsidian,chert, and limestone of course. But im pretty sure there arent any ruby mines in mesoamerica. And if there are, theyre covered by dense jungle unable to be found by modern means let along ancient ones. I hope this helps answer your question! A deeper look into any culture will reveal these interesting facts about their societies and its all thanks to the material culture they leave behind...

This podcast episode makes a good focused argument for why gold is a logical choice to base value upon, although it’s not the most explicitly anthropological approach. Besides that, pretty (eg sparkly or colourful) things catch the eyes of both humans and non-humans (like birds) as being attention getting and special, but there could also be deeper things going on here, as I’m not an expert on this at all.

How come there are so many mentions of giants in ancient texts?

Dinosaur fossil bones could be interpreted as giants and monsters. Thesis of this book on the classical world: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9435.html

> There has to be an explanation for this stuff with firm grounding in scientific fact, right? Not necessarily. I'm no expert in this topic, but coincidence mixed with theoretical evolutionary psychology could explain many separate ancient cultures' similarities. But this is in no way scientific fact.

Outlets for angry young men in traditional societies?

Is it viable to presuppose that "angry young men" is an innate disposition in males? I'm not even sure it makes sense to talk about angry young men today, but what we might identify as such could be explicable in terms of the historical development of capitalism towards fewer, less secure jobs or the pressures of (post)modern society and its cultural expectations of fluid gender roles and new responsibilities. I dont have an answer but i just dont think you can presuppose that young men are innately angry.

This is a really broad question. The way I would approach it is by looking at rites of passage for puberty in males, many of which involve extreme violence. For example "crocodile" scarification in Papua New Guinea among the Kaningara, or both sexes in the Hamar tribe of Ethiopia. A quick search for "violence & rites de passage" bought up this abstract about bullying in japanese schools. Which furthers the argument that the violence you are discussing ARE rites of passage, but taken out of traditional formalised contexts. Which in western society included joining the military and violent games and sports.

Why do humans have a longer lifespan than other primates (and all other land mammals, for that matter)?

It's been hypothesized that because of how social humans are, it was advantageous to have older members of the community alive to contribute knowledge and help for things like child rearing, food sources, etc. leading to increased fecundity and survival of children and grandchildren. You might find it interesting to read up on the Grandmother Hypothesis and other offshoots of this hypothesis.

We have a low extrinsic mortality rate that allows us to have a slower more protracted life history (with higher investment in offspring): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6223763/

What are some good documentaries about the history of human civilization?

You need to look at lectures, because documentaries are generally dramatized. The Teaching Company has so much good content. Of course youtube has great stuff. Just search for topics + lecture. Say you're interested in the transition between the paleolithic and neolithic.There are a FEW easily digestible youtube channels that are also good such as this one edit: There are a bunch of PBS Eons videos about anthropology as well.

Honestly I wish I could recommend something - and perhaps it's out there - but almost everything I have seen that tries to do something like this has made me (as an archaeologist) extremely angry haha Even stuff with solid production value and large audiences (e.g. The Histocrat) has, from what I've seen anyway, relied on ideas most of the field binned decades ago The best I've come across is actually a podcast called Fall of Civilisations. It's focused on societal "collapses" (which were often not "collapses" at all but more like transformations), but the first half or so is usually a lyrical description of the society itself with a minimal focus on armchair general bullshit. The writer isn't an archaeologist so it's not perfect but he has a much more up-to-date understanding of the knowledge we have than most others. He also touches on the how-do-we-know stuff once in a while. One tip: the term "civilisation" has come under a lot of flak in archaeology recently for 1. being kinda mostly racist ("civilisation" implies "civilised", which implies "uncivilised", a term with a rreeeaallly bad history) and 2. glorifying states and empires over other types of societies Ancient people did loads of cool stuff, but many of them wouldn't be considered part of a "civilisation", which would often have been considered a source of invasion, privatisation, and tyranny, rather than any kind of glorious "civilised" enlightenment. I'm not saying you fall into any of this stuff, just warning you that when people talk about "building civilisation" they're usually talking about a few rich dudes paying a bunch of poor dudes to kill a load of people, take their stuff, and use it to make the rich dudes even richer, before ruling over the survivors as unelected narcisisstic dictators. If you're interested in the flipside of this (democracy, autonomy, and freedom across the ancient world), a book called The Dawn of Everything is coming out in a month or so which you might find interesting.

Is guns germs and steel worth reading?

I would highly recommend Walter Scheidel's *Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity* (2019). It seeks to answer a similar question of why western Europe, and not some other place, entered the rapid phase of development that allowed it to gain global dominance. His central thesis is that what he terms "the Great Escape" was caused by enduring polycentrism and competition in Europe, both between states and within them, after the fall of Rome. He compares and contrasts Europe with the Middle East, South Asia, and especially China (as the region most consistently controlled by a single polity throughout history). He analyzes geography, economics, culture, etc to both determine the causes of regions' differing rates of imperial hegemony, and the way that this paradigm played out over the centuries in actual history. His arguments regarding steppe effects I found particularly fascinating. It's all done in a far more professional, measured, and scientific way than anything Diamond has ever done. It's a real masterpiece of dialectical history.

No.

What text can improve my understanding of the daily lives of people that live on the streets or in extreme poverty (in a big city)?

I like Flammable and think it's good -- I suppose it depends what specific you're trying to understand. Flammable is mostly about how residents of a polluted area live with that pollution. If that sounds helpful, it's definitely a book worth reading. The first recommendation that came to mind hearing you're a doctor is medical anthropologist Philippe Bourgois, specifically his book Righteous Dopefiend, about homeless drug addicts in the Bay Area. A good ethnography with a specific interest in how this topic relates to the medical system. Another medical anthropologist who has some work you might look at is Seth Holmes, who worked with migrant farmworkers in Washington State -- his book Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies has a couple chapters on how migrants interact with doctors and how those doctors fail to understand their issues.

you're lucky that you have regular access to the people you want to learn more about. are you able to sit down with them and talk? have a tea and connect with them?

Do we have any evidence (or educated conjecture) about when or why people started changing clothes for sleep?

Practically speaking: cold climates, if you wear your day clothes to bed and then get up and go outside you're gonna freeze. Also, you need *dry* clothing, not sweaty clothing, or you're gonna freeze. Our migration to colder climates probably influenced this behavior significantly.

You might get a better answer to this question in r/AskHistorians. You would need to reframe the question in terms of which cultures or societies have a history of separate or specialized clothes for sleeping, and what do we know about that history. It's not like all humans used to do it one way then then we all switched to another.

Why did we start measuring time?

First measurements of time were to make sure you knew when to plant crops. Babylonians had a base sixty system, and the fact that they initially measured the year to be 360 days is still with us culturally: There are 360 degrees in a circle.

It's worth noting that a wide variety of animals and plants measure time. This is necessary for their reproduction, and daily activities, among other things. - https://phys.org/news/2017-03-scientists-animals-year.html - https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(06)02136-1.pdf - https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/researchers-show-how-plants-tell-the-time Perceptions of time are though to vary based on size and metabolism: - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/small-animals-live-in-a-slow-motion-world/ Dividing time up into distinct units (eg. hours, minutes, etc) rather than 'days', or 'halfway to night', or "when the shadow hits the second rock' is a more human thing, but it's unclear when that would have developed as something like a sundial is not difficult to make, as well as occurring occurring naturally, so it's quite possible that some populations of people had distinct ways of measuring specific units of time deep in the past. We simply don't know though.

In cultures where names come directly from that culture's own language, do members of those culture actively recognize the meaning when they encounter the name?

When you meet a girl named Angel, do you immediately think of an angel? Or when you meet a Victor, do you think about conquest? (Even though I'm aware both Angel and Victor are Latin derived words, the words also have common English meanings.) Your brains are very adept at segmenting words into their contextual usage.

Well, English names aren't even that different in this sense either, it's just that in North America most people don't speak the language of their own paternal ancestry. I would say even recognizing "Christian names" would count as people being able to often instantly recognize the "etymology." It's not as if other cultures don't have names that aren't equally "ancient" or gained from cultural diffusion either, and there's no reason why people would automatically consider any more or less the etymologies as curiousities. In regards to understanding any information those names could also be carrying, it depends on a lot of things, and being a culture with "Christian" names is not really a top reason. Take a hypothetical person named Arthur Christopher Worcester. Most people know that Arthur was a mythical king, religiously minded people would be able to tell you more about who saint Christopher was and how he gained that name and what it means, but not everyone cares about that sort of traditional religion and history, and Worcester is a town, maybe this persons ancestors had some connection to it? Not all that different than a name from Asia that may have connections to some ancient or mythical king that people have varying degrees of knowledge and interest in, or has an element to do without minor point with religion, which again, not everyone necessarily knows or cares about, but there would absolutely also be people who could tell you about it, and a surname that seems to connect a person to a physical location or occupation. The connection between a person and a location based on their surname really depends on a case-by-case basis and on the history of surnames in that nation. Most countries that have surnames haven't always had them be a thing, especially for the entirety of the population. Commoners didn't start gaining surnames in Europe in most places until well after the Middle Ages. Some places in the world gained surnames for the entire population much earlier, like Korea (and this can be reflected on the fact that diversity in surnames is much lower there, as time has allowed more surnames to die out), and some places gained them much later. So the likelhood of a person's surname reflecting something remotely relevant to their life goes way down the longer that surnames, for everyone, has been a thing in that culture. Even then, it's absolutely not a guarantee and at best a guess most of the time. Even if a persons last name is smith or tailor, does not at all necessarily mean that person has had any ancestors who were smiths or tailors, or if they did that that has anything to do with their last name either. This is something true in probably every culture that uses surnames. Although I would also like to add a small note, names and class are often closely linked in many cultures. In India, many people have a "caste" name, and in Hungary, you can tell if someone has aristocratic ancestry by how they spell their last name. It still doesn't necessarily mean the literal meaning of the word has any relevance, but that all the other connotations of it does (or at least historically had relevance). This is true of British names, but, as I said, as most people in North America don't speak the language of their paternal ancestors, and the fact that all these different customs come together in ways that inevitably make some feel especially socially irrelevant.

Why does it seem pedophilia is most common in males?

I not sure about anthropology sources, but what I remember for psychology is pedophilia is sexual interest in 4-12ish range. Younger is neophilia attraction to infants which is more common in women apparently, but very rare. There are three kinds of pedophilias 1) opportunist, those who prefer sex with adults but will sub with prepubescent, 2) true pedophilias, only attracted to prepubescent features, 3) sadist, children are very vulnerable and make easy targets. Sexual abused male children are more likely to become abusers themselves, and it is rarer for female children to become abusers at least sexually from abuse. Men have a natural attraction to young features, but also good signs of fertility like wide hips and breasts which prepubescent females lack. So some neurology is at work here, but I'm not well in formed. IF you apply western ideals to non western cultures many sexual rituals might be considered cycles of abuse. This is a complex issue for example the Sambia have a flute ceremony between older males and younger boy in which the boy's imbibe semen to become more manly. It's practice is based off there world view that masculinity is achieved and cultivated not the natural state of being. Same-sex alliances with sexual favors between younger boys and adult males is pretty common throughout history Hoplites, Knights, Samurai, and various South Pacific indigenous populations. I am also aware of a group of asians in which mothers suck there infants penis to sooth them. We current westerners see it as taboo to have sexual behavior with minors which may not be considered sexual behavior by another group. Western society does not believe prepubescent or minors are capable of making informed decisions about sex. It appears ones ideas about sex and potential shame are not necessarily natural but encultured see http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trobriand_Islands. So perhaps more men are sex offereds because of how we think about and teach about sex, sexual identity, and what it means to masculine.

Truthfully, I don't think I'd be suprised either way, but can you show me some kind of statistic showing the premise of this question is valid in the first place? Do we actually know that female paedophilia is less common? I tried some quick searches to see if I could even find any legitimate journalism or scholarly writing on the subject and truth be told, I found myself drowning in a sea of opinion muck. Even when I went to Google Scholar, it was all either diagnostic info or case studies, not statistics.

What motivated the inuits to Stay in the "icy desert"?

That could be asked of many groups: Why do the Tuareg live predominantly in the Sahara? Why do the Saami live in the artic tundra? Why do the Diné (Navajo) live in the high deserts? Ancient cultures are complex. Their lifestyles, mores and folkways, spirituality are intimately tied to the environments they inhabit. Given that, up until around 6k years ago , most of us got around by walking, at most a human can only walk around 20 miles a day. If you spent two weeks walking (14 days) you'd only have covered, at most 280 miles and that's assuming it's fairly flat ground, no other apex predators that you look tasty to, and you could find enough resources yourself on that trek to supply your energy and hydration needs. Many humans choose to live, even these days, in places that are familiar to them. Not everyone, of course, but enough that most humans will live their entire lives within a few hundred miles of where they were born. As I understand it, it took modern humans around 45k years to colonize the world. Like, 15k-20k years for Europe alone. We're not fast colonizers but we are persistent. As peoples moved into uncharted (at least to them) environments they'd have to learn the flora and fauna of that area in order to become successful - that's a lot of work! So by staying in areas they knew well, they had better opportunities to survive and thrive. The Inuit are no different. Try living a traditional Inuit life if all you've ever known is living in an American Town in the lower 48? You'd fail miserably, which - if you remember American history, is exactly what happened with many of the first colonist to the Americas from England when they first came to the eastern seaboard.

There are a couple of different ways to think about this question. The simplest way is to remember that moving to better climates would mean either having to compete with whoever lived there, or hope that the people there would allow you to join their group. But I am not sure that is the whole answer. Groups living in tough environments adapt and create successful strategies to survive. So, if what you are doing is working, why move? You would need to develop whole new skill sets. Also, people acclimate to all kinds of things -- abusive families, slavery, colonialism, sexism, etc. We are born into these places and don't know that there are other ways to do things or that other people have it easier (even if we know we are suffering). We may still have attachments to the cultures and places that oppress us and make our lives harder, and this can make us motivated to try to improve local conditions rather than move to somewhere else. Humans rise to challenges and try to make things work -- it is part of what makes us so biologically adaptable and successful. And finally, it's not like indigenous groups from the arctic circle knew what all the options were. They may have known that life was like a bit to south, but they didn't necessarily know that moving to coastal Southern California was an option. When they compared their lives to the groups just a bit further south, it probably didn't seem like such a big difference. In a way you could ask yourself this same question -- there is probably somewhere on the planet that would be better or easier for you to live in, so why don't you move? There are lots of things that keep us where we are.

What does cultural anthropology have to say about cults, aka, new religious movements (NRMs)?

I would love to talk more about this. I am a sociologist but trained in both Soc and Anthro. I have recently begun dipping into this literature but I have not gotten too far. I share exactly the same concern you do about the category of NRM's, and I am learning a lot from Lalich (who I am still reading). I don't have the data to make a strong argument, but my sense right now is that both pop culure depictions and sociological arguments about NRM's are based on the same misunderstanding -- that cults are about what people believe not how they build community/group ties. In other words, cults are not problematic because they make people believe untruths or non-normative ideas. They are problematic because they are based on coercive control. I like Lalich's use of the word "totalist" groups instead of cults because it helps us do three things: 1) distinguish between NRM's and cults; 2) disrupt popular but oversimplified ideas about what "brainwashing" is and who is vulnerable to totalist groups; and 3) see that totalism is not just found in religious groups, but can be used to structure self-help, multi-level marketing, political groups, families, and so on. From an anthropological perspective I am not sure this solves all the problems. We still have to grapple with judgements about "individualist" vs "collectivist" cultures. Something that seems too coercive in an individualistic society may not seem so to a collectivist society. And something that is acceptable to an individualistic society may seem cold-hearted and rejecting in a collectivist society. For example, a totalist group may allow members to die by coercing people not to get health care -- that is clearly a problem (especially for children). But a highly individualistic group like the US may allow members to die because they can not afford health care -- that is clearly also a problem (especially for children). But even the terms individualistic and collectivist are oversimplifications and set up a model of opposite or binary choices where the reality is never so cut and dry. It is the big grey areas that are hard to deal with. If you want to send me a DM as I develop my bibliography I can share it with you. On a more personal note -- congratulations! I am so happy to hear that you have left your abusive group and are taking control by writing your own book. We need more personal stories (especially from kids raised in totalist groups) that use academic concepts to explain and explore the experience, but most important is that you are doing this for yourself. Whatever the outcome, it is so impressive.

What to call them is frankly still a bit of a debate but NRMs is a good term to get your started. New Religions Studies is the interdisciplinary field that connects a lot of this research. This book is about ten years old but might be a good grounding: Hammer, Olav, and Mikael Rothstein, eds. The Cambridge companion to new religious movements. Cambridge University Press, 2012. This one, too, which also discuss terminology and the debate about what even is a cult Dawson, Lorne. Cults in context: readings in the study of new religious movements. Routledge, 2018. Most anthropological examinations of NRMs focus on a few aspects like gender, politics, class, ethnicity, ritual etc. Many of these intersect but it's damn hard to do a book about everything related to a religious community. So once you know what you're focus areas are for your book you might want to do a little research on ethnographies on those topics. Scholar.google.com is your friend for that.

How come European Anthropologists refer to African people as tribes or tribal?

I have a Masters in Anthropology. I would not use the term tribe if I have the choice. Tribe has a specific meaning which does not apply to all African groupings. To use it as a blanket term is inaccurate and the word has developed into a negative referent in the minds of many users of the term.

Each of the European examples you've given have been called tribes by anthropologists and historians in the past, it's just that they no longer fit the description. With the exception of extinct Gaul, the Irish, Scots, English and Germans have all formed nation-states based on their ethnicity. None of your African examples have, for many reasons. That's the distinction.

Are there any good books on Apache culture?

Keith Basso's ethnographic work is pretty stellar, although he is not Apache himself. His book *Wisdom Sits in Places* is a classic for a reason.

I highly suggest a book called 9 Years Among the Indians by Herman Lehmann. Herman was kidnapped as a child and raised by the Apache. Later he joined with the Comanche and became an adopted son of Quanah Parker. It is a fascinating read as it's told completely from Hermans own perspective. Laconic and violent I would describe his stories, that paint a picture of just how tough a warring, nomadic tribal life was. Check it out

Why are there separate language groups and language isolates?

Let's put this question into perspective a bit. Languages are constantly evolving and borrowing and changing and dying, but the oldest reconstructed language, proto-Afro-Asiatic, the ancestor of Arabic, Hebrew, and a number of languages in northern Africa, was spoken around 12,000 years ago. Before then, no one has any idea what people were speaking. Anatomically modern humans have been around for some 100,000 years, so assuming our species has always used language, that means that the languages of the world could have evolved entirely beyond recognition 8 different times since the beginning of Homo sapiens. And that's not accounting for the possibility that other hominins may have communicated with something that we would consider language. Couple that with the fact that the soft tissues of the vocal tract and the brain that might give us hints to earlier forms of language quickly decay, and you can see why it is difficult to know anything about the beginnings of language.

One thing to consider is that there exist languages which are known for a fact to be true isolates and genetically unrelated to any other languages. The best-known example is Nicaraguan Sign Language. Wikipedia also lists a few other examples here

The evolutionary reasons for different skin colours make intuitive sense, but what about different hair textures?

Not everything has a clear evolutionary benefit. Some traits just sort of arbitrarily become selected for, either through random chance (genetic drift, founder effect like /u/kkokk mentioned) or because people subjectively found them more attractive (sexual selection).

Hair texture has a lot to do with climate. Kinky, curly hair evolved in hot, humid climates to keep people cool, whereas straight hair evolved in cooler climates. Think of the natives people of sub-Saharan Africa. They have extremely curly hair. Now think of the Inuit of Alaska. They have straight hair. Climate has led to the evolution of numerous phenotypes: hair texture, skin color, nose and lip size, etc.

Second Career Anthropologists I looked in the career thread and didn’t see much about it, but I’m wondering if anyone has experience as or have heard of any second career Anthropologists?

I started as an archaeological field tech in the southeast and mid-Atlantic, moved up to technical writer via independent research and work. After 5 years I am now a tribal legal advisor/analyst who works on compliance in California. It takes independence and a LOT of drive.

Idk about second career, but the research, critical thinking and social framework skills anth/soc folks have are sought after in local government, urban planning, recreational planning, private and public environmental sectors and even the army corps of engineers to help in multidisciplinary team projects. In my experience, listing the practical skills of anthropology to help with team cohesion got me a lot of attention while applying for jobs.

How advanced could Neanderthals have been?

One of the prevail hypothesis about Neandertals is that they weren't necessarily less intelligent than homo sapiens, but that they were ill suited for the rapidly changing climate surrounding them. Neandertalis were larger and more muscular and they had massive calorie requirements. That's a disadvantage in a world where dense caloric food is hard to come by.

So, I'm going to preface by saying I don't know historical specifics, how ever if you'd like an anthropological author to reference and get ideas from, Jean Auel wrote a series starting with Clan of the Cavebear, and it goes into FANTASTIC detail about mundane detailed of ancient peoples, especially the Neanderthals. The author worked closely with anthropologists and historians and even geologists to write her books, and based some storyline and character ideas off of real anthropological finds! I will say the book is also pretty heavily fantasy too, it compresses something like a thousand years plus of human development into like ten years, but it can be forgiven due to how surprisingly informative the books are. I can't think of a better historical fantasy writer to get ideas from on this particular topic than Jean Auel. *Edit: always take fictional work with a grain of salt, however Jean often includes the names of the historians and scientists she collaborated with, so it gives you the names of, at one time or another, experts in these fields to research, so you can get the information you need directly instead of relying purely on fictional extrapolation, though even her fictional extrapolation is so well detailed that it gives you a really good idea of what questions to research, and what specific information you need to fill in the gaps!

Do you think the current religious beliefs around the world will be practiced 5000 years in the future?

First of all, classic anthropology isn't a discipline that is based on predicative models. Especially American anthropology -- which was in large part created by Franz Boas largely to "salvage" sources of indigenous knowledge, wisdom, and cultural aspects in hopes of creating a repository of data that could one day be used to identify structural components of human thought and culture. The TLDR of the above paragraph being, "We don't foretell the distant future." Otherwise we'd all be bestselling scifi authors, military consultants, and crystal ball seers. A book you might find interesting is Malvin Harris's "Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches." In it, he analyzes classic religious practices and figures out underlying functions that they serve in cultures. An easy example is the sacredness of cows in India. Harris came to the conclusion that this was a practice that evolved from the underlying usefulness of cows in that particular area of the world. A well-kept cow provides milk, yogurt calves, plowing of fields, manure for fertilization... many benefits beyond that of beef meat. As such, it became ingrained in culture that cows were not for eating. In essence, beliefs have a function. Otherwise they don't stick around. Obviously Ancient Egyptian religion (from around 5000 years ago) has not provided that function, and therefore has not persisted. The predominant religion in the world, Christianity, has been around for 2000 years, has probably provided the world with some function during that time, or else it would no longer exist; it is, however, shrinking. Hinduism is upwards of 3500 years old; Buddhism around 2500. Currently the fastest growing religions are Islam and atheistic/none. One has to assume that each of these has a specific function, and that people are drawn to them based on their need at that point in time. Religious beliefs as a whole exist far beyond recorded history. So to answer your question: if there is a function of religion in ensuring the mental health of a given group of humans, it will continue to exist. I see our future plagued with a number of uncertainties in the future, and religion is most effective when used to account for factors beyond our control. We likely will have an impending refugee crisis in the near future as climate change forces demographic movements like nothing we've ever seen; I'd predict religion to be present through that. Should we make it to a space age -- as I would hope -- then I have no doubt that careful scientific knowledge and atheism will be very prevalent; I wouldn't be surprised if new religions arrive to fill the new gaps in knowledge that we will inevitable have. We have yet to figure out whether or not we'll be around as a species for the next 200 years. I'm more worried about that. But I -- personally -- have little doubt that religion, in some way, shape, or form, is pretty universal, and pretty integral to the human state of mind.

Syncretism all but guarantees that they will look almost nothing like they do today.

Why do some recipes improve with age, while others decline?

What abgreat question! Followong along to see the answers. I recently made old fashioned Dutch pepernoten and taaitaai and they also tasted a lot better after 2 or 3 days... i had the same happen with a rumcake from Ottolengi his book Sweet. Very curious why this is for some recipes, while others are better eaten when right out of the oven. I think partly will be flavours getting more time to set in some cakes and cookies...

Brownie (at least the recipe I've been using) gets better with age too 😍

How do so many dessert places (donut shops, cake shops, etc) use whipped cream decoration without refrigerating it?

Yeah, this is a great observation. It reminds me of this scene from “The Founder,” a film about the origin of McDonald’s. The concern is franchises are unable to turn large profits because their ice cream milk shakes use real ice cream. Thus, their most salient ingredient needs to be refrigerated, but the operational costs to do so siphon from the business - https://youtu.be/n5uadToINEY

Cornstarch.

Home cake bakers: How do you deal with customers that won’t settle on a cake design after days of back and forth?

I would narrow it down with a required form. Ex: they reach out to you, saying “I want a bday cake” You respond with a form with multiple choice. Shape 1 tier, 2 tier, etc. Size (including how many the sizes feed) Flavor Filling (optional) Frosting You can offer base pricing and say “+3.00” or “+5.00” etc for certain options. It’s so much easier for both parties if all options are clearly spelled out. You could even add like basic design options, like piped roses, ombré effect, etc. if this would work for your demographic. This could make it simple for someone who is just needing a cake for an occasion that doesn’t necessarily need some custom, fancy design. Once they’ve provided you the basic requirements, you can discuss the important part of the top design. I tend to agree with others, a fee for “reworks” greater than 5 emails, etc.

Not a cake designer, but a designer of digital things with a love for baking, and, yeah.. i feel like this is universal about “design” of anything If I can give any advice on how to handle it as soon as they _do_ figure out what on earth they’re looking for: make sure it’s agreed upon, up until the finest of details, before you start doing any production work. It’ll save you a lot of discussing if you’ve both agreed on what to do/include/whatever beforehand. As advice on how to do the part _before_ that: set boundaries for yourself, expectations for your client, and communicate them both very clearly. And get in their shoes. They want a great design, probably even more than you do. Make sure you tell them you’re on the same page in that sense, but you need more directions. >”Look, I’m really looking to nail this design for you, but in order for that to happen you’ll need to know when I nailed it and when I didn’t before I start. That’s why I want XYZ <whatever you need to make a proper design> before DATE <whenever you need it by>, and from there I have time to make one more revision on that design from where we can move forward”

Cheesecake Tips How do you prevent a NY cheesecake from cracking?

Wrap it aluminum foil and use a water bath. Another thing that can help is to turn off the oven a bit earlier and leave it in the oven to gradually cool on its own for an hour or so before removing it

2 things I’ve always done: Water bath. I put the cheesecake in its typical cake pan, then I wrap the outside of the pan really well with foil (I use a springform pan so it’s not like water tight hence the foil) to prevent any water seeping in. Then I fill a very large roasting pan with water and put the cheesecake in that. Second thing is never open the oven except when you put it in and take it out. I’ve made several cheesecakes and only cracked 1 of them when I absent mindedly opened the oven door once to check to see if it was done. As soon as I opened it I knew I was screwed haha, but too late.

Does anyone bake with Marijuana?

If you have a sous-vide precision cooker, I’d recommend this method. You’d have to look up the exact temperature, but there are some simple articles about it. But you can do your decarb easily and smell-free as well as your cooking fats. I use a blend of butter and coconut oil, as this works in most baked goods and thc is especially soluble in coconut oil. Also, if you can, add lecithin to the fats, you’ll get a more potent product. Potency is really up to you, but I usually do 1/8oz of flower for every cup of fat. Then choosing recipes with the desired fat content varies the potency further. One of my favorite treats to make are coconut-lime shortbreads. The high fat content creates a very powerful little cookie that is a great size to be split or taken all at once. I’m happy to go into more detail on any of these things, if you’d like.

r/treedibles

How do you keep your stuff organized?

I'm a professional chef & baker, I keep everything in mechanics tool chests as they're lockable, have handy drawers and are really easy to transport from gig to gig.

Are you me? I've been putting my cookie cutters, food coloring, piping bags & tips, all in separate ziplock bags and then throwing the into my big baking bin. That way the like items are somewhat together.

What could I make with 3-4 bananas that’s NOT banana bread Last year, I made banana bread so much that I’m actually so sick of making it, but my family keeps requesting it still😭 Does anyone have any idea of what to make with it?

Bravetart has a cinnamon roll recipe that uses mashed banana in the dough. It has only a faint banana taste, but makes it very fluffy. I love it.

For Christmas, our family makes banana cookies with brown butter icing. They're so good! Let me know if you want the recipe.

What's the best icing to frost a chocolate cake?

Boiled icing or Marshmallow buttercream. Super fluffy, doesn’t melt easily. When I made a unicorn rainbow cake for my goddaughter, I put the cake into the freezer to set, then made a 2x batch of frosting, divided it into 7 bowls, used gel coloring to make ROYGBIV frosting batches. Then I used white frosting to put a crumb coat on the assembled cake, and froze it again. Put the colors of frosting into separate ziplock freezer bags. Cut a corner off the corner of each then, starting in the middle of the cake, pipe fat concentric rings of the colors in rainbow order, then use a knife or spatula dipped in water to smooth the ridges w/out smearing the colors. Use a paper towel to wipe the knife in between swipes. This lays down a nice thick layer that hides the darker cake, and looks pretty good. :-)

Swiss meringue butter cream is lovely also.

Smooth apple pie filling?

I have a cookbook with a recipe for smash apple pie, which grates the apples for the filling. I imagine that would help with your texture issue!

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/9545/mock-apple-pie/ My mom always talks about her mom making this. No apples included.

How do you get cookies to look pillowy/glossy?

There are these evil creatures called "food stylists" who make a living by deceiving you. They're the ones who replace glasses of milk with glasses of Elmer's glue because it looks whiter on the screen. There's no guarantee what you're seeing is even real or was made following the recipe. At best, they pick the best specimens and toss the rest. One baking book author told a story that she thought was funny, but I found appalling. She said that the photos of baguettes for her bread book were lost, so they had to run down the street to the Culinary Institute of America and buy a bunch of baguettes to be photographed. I felt so betrayed.

Lots and lots of sugar

Chinese Pastry Cookbook?

Not sure about a cookbook but this recipe is fantastic. My first time making them was a success!! Cantonese Egg Tarts https://youtu.be/El0QqbL4CW4

I like Woks of Life and Just One Cookbook blogs for Chinese and Japanese recipes. Woks of life does quite a few pastry and bread recipes and I used their recipe for egg tarts and puff pastry.

Any way to make pie four days before serving?

Lemon icebox pie. Freezes amazingly, or key lime pie

you could make chocolate cream pie. pick a recipe that uses baker's unsweetened chocolate added at the end and make sure to cook the custard completely so it won't weep. use a homemade cookie crust and bake it nice and crisp. the crust will get a little soft but it's still delicious that way. if you want to decorate with whipped cream, stabilize it with cream cheese then pipe right away. it'll hold fine in the fridge until Sunday. at the last minute throw some chocolate jimmies on there or choc sauce/maraschinos/sprinkles/chocolate shavings/cocoa nibs/ETC on top. You'll need to keep it in some kind of covered box to keep the whip from discoloring. I usually save disposable pie tins that come with the plastic cover for this purpose but a cake box would work great.

Why aren't compound butter pie crusts a thing?

Friend of mine made me a quiche with savory herb compound butter crust once. Was fucking amazing.

As some have mentioned, I can imagine how there could be problems with something like garlic or citrus zest affecting the quality of the butter. Still, I feel like even if that was the case, it likely wouldn't be noticeable enough to make it not a worthwhile thing to experiment with. I honestly think you should go for it. It sounds like an awesome idea! In fact, I sort of want to try laminating some croissant dough with compound butter now..

What does sour cream do for cakes?

It is used in very specific recipes, you cant add it to any cake. So different cakes use different tecnhiques and that achieves different textures. Like the Genoise sponge only has eggs, sugar and a little flour. I use those for big buttercream cakes because the sponge is very light which contrasts nicely with buttercream and other heavy fillings. You could not add sour cream to that recipe. In contrast the devils food cake recipe that I use has sourcream. I would not be able to make it without an acidic dairy product. Like the previous comment said it adds moisture but most importantly the acid activates the rising agent. This is very important for the rise and texture of the cake. So if you dont have sourcream you cant just use milk or cream instead. You have to add some kind of acid like yogurt or buttermilk. I strongly recommend chocolate cake recipes that use sour cream or similar acidic dairy. The texture and tastes are the best in those. So in conclusion, sour cream does wonders for the cake recipes that call for it. But you should never add it to a recipe that doesnt specifically tell you to. It will mess up the chemistry.

Sour cream gives cake more moisture without making the batter too thin. It also adds more fat content resulting in a creamier batter and tastier cake. Sour cream has a slight acidity that helps activate baking powder for leavening. I wouldn’t just throw it into any batter, instead find a recipe that already had sour cream as an ingredient, this way you know the ratios have already been accounted for and it won’t throw anything off.

Can I be Baker even tho I'm not that good at baking?

> Sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something. -Jake the dog Though, seriously, I don't think knowing a skill is (or at least shouldn't be) a prerequisite for going to school to learn that skill.

Don’t just go to tasty. Go to sites that will explain why the recipe works as well as have great recipes. My go to for free recipes are serious eats and King Arthur I also have learned a ton from cooks illustrated but it’s a paid site. You can probably find their magazine or cook books at your library. As well as so many other amazing cookbooks.

Help with decorating skills I want to improve my decorating skills, do you know if is worthy to take class of that but online?

It depends on your learning needs. Videos are great if you’re a self starter snd just need practice, classes usually mean more one on one time with specified direction. Definitely invest in some dummy cakes, parchment paper, and some cheap frosting to practice with. I highly recommend starting by writing in cursive repeatedly and drawing the patterns you want to ice on paper so you start getting used to the motions before you even hold a bag.

to start maybe watch erin mcdowell’s piping and cake decoration videos on youtube!

Advice on flavor profile for a lavender cake Hey guys, My friend wants me to make her an earl grey/lavender cake with honey So I wanted to try out an earl grey lavender cake from preppy kitchen preppy Kitchen Lavender Cake I have lemon jam and I was thinking of adding lemon jam in between layers or a lemon curd?

Hahaha I have something very similar to this planned for this weekend! I'm doing: Earl Gray cake Lavender/earl gray syrup soak Lemon curd filling Vanilla SMBC Loosely following this recipe. https://livforcake.com/earl-grey-cake/ Mine is a lot less heavy on lavender and doesn't have honey, though

I would think that you have to be careful with how strong to make the lemon flavor to avoid it completely overwhelming the more subtle flavor of lavender.

Can frosting or butter creams that contain milk/heavy cream stay out at room temp for multiple days?

It's fine! We use an American Buttercream at work (butter, powdered sugar, half and half and flavoring) and leave it out at room temp for over a week. Once, many years ago, the health inspector questioned the safety, so the owner sent it out to a lab for testing and they OKed leaving it at room temp!

It is dependent on the recipe and other ingredients. As a general rule it may be safe but factors like sour cream, lemon juice, or other acids as well as the sugar content would be important to know. The reason sugar matters is because it is hygroscopic and binds water. This binding of water prevents it from being “available” to bacteria for growth. If you’d like to know more about this then Google Search for terms like “water activity” and whatever food or item you’re interested in.

How do you prepare your cookie dough?

Pro baker here. 90% of the cookies we make go in the fridge until the next day. It stops them from spreading to much and I think they taste better if they've rested.

I agree with the others about letting it rest (I do at least 30 minutes up to overnight). I also like to brown the butter (adds more flavour) and use cut chocolate chunks instead of chips.

Ideas for a sympathy basket of baked goods?

Lovely gesture. My 2 cents would be to throw in something on the nutritious side, or at least a bit less sweet - bread, biscuits, oatmeal cookies/muffins, crackers (with cheese?). If he’s receiving lots of baked goods from loved ones, there’s a good chance he’ll have lots of sweets around and could use some variety.

I would stick to what you know he loves - your banana bread, maybe a couple loaves so he can freeze 1 (or 2). Some coffees and/or teas to accompany that and your gift card IMHO is perfect. This is so sweet of you.

Let's talk vanilla What's is you favorite vanilla to use in most desserts?

I use Costco vanilla because it's so cheap I feel fine dumping massive quantities into food. Sorry, I'm pathetic. But I really do this. I raised two boys, lived through the teenage boy years where they would eat massive quantities of ANYthing, and never recovered from the "quantity not quality" methods of cooking.

I make my own. Vanilla beans, warm vodka, sterilized long neck bottles, a few weeks in the back of the pantry.

Filled brownies Hi, I want to filled my brownies with Nutella or sometting like that, but I want to know if it bakes ok or it will be better to filled the brownies with cream after they are cooked ?

You can split the batter like the other commenter suggested, or you can dollop and swirl it on the top. For non-brown fillings, it gives a nice swirling pattern.

Do layers. Split the batter in half, lay down the filling, then put the other half of the batter on top.