Читать книгу A Companion to Medical Anthropology онлайн

38 страница из 242

Yet, despite these correctives, science itself had by the 1980s come under scrutiny. The scientific method – the paradigm that biological anthropologists most often worked within – was increasingly seen as an “establishment” tool. Worse, evolutionary biology was maligned by some because of its potential use by racists (D’Andrade 2000, p. 223).

Finding itself on the “wrong” side of the culture–biology divide thrown up and vilified by vocal and morally accusatory opponents of positivism, biological anthropology received less than its fair share of recognition. This is not to say that biological medical anthropology did not take place; indeed it did, and continues to do, in ways that have contributed greatly to advancing our biocultural understanding regarding, for example, high-altitude adaptations, lactose tolerance, breastfeeding, stress, substance use, and global disease threats as well as to building a more theory-driven epidemiology and a culturally informed epigenetics. However, such efforts were (and are) often rewarded more richly outside of medical anthropology than in it.