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The great anthropologist Henry Harpending (1944-2016) has died. A genial polymath, Henry bridged the gap in anthropology between the old-fashioned cultural side (having spent almost 4 years in the field in Africa with Bushmen and Herero hunter-gatherers, at one point almost giving up academia to become a safari hunting guide) and the ascendant genetic side of anthropology.
It’s my honor to have brought Henry and Gregory Cochran into contact around 1999. Their collaboration has proved productive, such as their landmark 2005 paper The Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence, their 2010 book The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution, and their blog West Hunter.
Here’s an account Henry wrote of what it’s like to hunt the Cape Buffalo:
Probably most of our readers don’t have personal experience with old-fashioned, Pleistocene-style big game hunting. The only place in which it is still possible – not for much longer, at that – is Africa, where the big game had a chance to adapt as mankind gradually became formidable hunters and thus managed to survive until today. Without that experience, it’s hard to realize how remarkable Neanderthals were, how difficult hunting bison and elk with thrusting spears must have been. It’s not easy to appreciate the risks stone-age hunters had to take when they went after mammoths, rhinos, or Cape buffalo: it’s not exactly safe today, even with modern weapons. One of us, however (Henry Harpending) does have that experience, and the following note gives a flavor of what it’s like – particularly when you don’t have the faintest idea what you’re doing.
Encounter with a Buffalo
When I (HCH) was a graduate student in the 1960’s I spent a year and a half in the northern Kalahari desert doing fieldwork with !Kung Bushmen, foragers who lived by foraging wild foodstuffs and hunting game animals. With several other graduate students we had a base camp near the border with Southwest Africa (now Namibia) about 100 miles south of the Caprivi Strip on the northern border of Botswana. The nearest source of supplies was a two-day trip from their camp by four wheel drive truck.
Several weeks after the rainy season ended there were reports in the neighborhood of a cape buffalo that was harassing people and animals. Often older males lose rank and leave herd to wander by themselves, angry and uncomfortable. They are a threat to people and stock, especially horses.
We were out of meat in our camp, and so with the confidence and foolishness of youth we decided to hunt down the buffalo. We had visions of steaks and chops as well as many pounds of dried meat for travel rations and dog food. At that time permits for Buffalo were only a few dollars from the Botswana game department, and we had several. Although there were stories of Buffalo being aggressive and dangerous to hunt, to my eye they were simply large cattle. Bushmen never hunted them with their poison arrow and spear technology, but they too were naïve and had great faith in our high-powered rifle.
One morning we set off to where the animal had last been reported. The party was a colleague, several young Bushman males, and myself. We soon picked up its tracks and for several hours followed its wanderings through the low thorny scrub. To me the tracks looked exactly like those of a cow but the Bushmen never hesitated. When it was apparent at one point that there were no tracks at all in view I asked, and the Bushmen told me that there was no point in following the tracks since they knew exactly where it was going. We often saw this hunting with Bushmen–they used actual tracks as a guide but knew the habits of animals so well that they often proceeded on their own to pick up actual tracks later on.
This went on for hours until, suddenly, a young man grabbed my shoulder and said “there it is.” I looked long and hard until I saw it, well camouflaged behind several yards of thick brush, sideways, staring hard at us with its bright pig eyes. It was about forty yards away.
As I brought the rifle up I was dismayed to realize that it still had a powerful telescopic sight. I should have removed it and use open iron sights in thick bush but I had forgotten. With the magnification of the scope I saw a black mass surrounded by brush. It took a moment to locate the front legs, then the chest. Oriented, I aimed and fired. “Bang-whump”, the bang from the rifle and the whump as the bullet struck the buffalo. He jerked a little, then simply stood there staring at me. “Bang-whump, bang-whump” as I fired two more rounds.
Now he tossed his head and snorted, then started running toward us. Buffalo charge with their nose high, only lowering their head to use their horns on contact. I fired one more round at the charging animal, head on, simply pointing at him because he was so close, then turned and ran. We discovered later that the bullet had struck his shoulder, ricocheted off his scapula, and exited through the skin on his side. It certainly didn’t slow him down at all: I might as well have been shooting at a railroad locomotive.
There were three of us running away now from the charging animal: my colleague, our camp dog, and myself.
You can find out what happened here.
(To see how tough even a baby Cape Buffalo is, it’s worth rewatching the Battle At Kruger video:
We have lost a great scientist and from all I have read, a very good and decent man.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377103
I’m so sorry to hear – he’s had a huge influence on me and many others. I’ll be thinking of Henry’s family and friends, wishing them comfort and strength.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377113
RIP but what a life!!
The Cape buffalo hunting story is amazing.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377114
Henry Harpending will be greatly missed by all; a big-spirited, big-hearted, and great man.
I have read quite a few firearms and hunting related magazines and from everything I have read Cape buffalo are just about universally regarded as the most dangerous big game animal in Africa. To go after one with anything less than a very large caliber, magnum hunting round is regarded as suicidal insanity. Using a 30-06 to hunt one is sort of like going after a cougar or black bear with a .22. But Professor Harpending’s story is a great read.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377120
I met him at the Menken Club a few years ago. An extremely nice guy, but was a smoker and didn’t look like he kept himself in the best of shape. Too bad, there are only a handful of truth tellers among the however many thousands of professors we have in this country.
RIP.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377128
I was very saddened to hear of his stroke and now of his death. My heartfelt condolences go out to Henry’s family and friends.
Henry Harpending was a very cool guy for us who pay attention and notice things. His death is a huge loss for us all.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377131
A great loss. He was not only a top notch scientist in this field, he also had such a friendly touch in all of his writings.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377133
Sorry to hear that.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377135
My best wishes to his friends and family
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377143
A loss to science.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377147
I am very sorry to hear this. He will be greatly missed.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377149
An ex of mine is a hunter of big and small game. He is a taxidermist by trade and can, luckily, take hunting trips off his taxes. He is a member of the Safari Club and while I was in a relationship with him one of my favorite things to do was to attend Safari Club dinners. At one of the dinners I met a man everyone called “Big Jim”, a very John Wayne type of guy. He had 2 stories in particular which I have told repeatedly for 25 years now. One of them involved hunting in Namibia. Big Jim was hunting Cape Buffalo with a Black (sorry, one must be specific) African guide. Big Jim set his sights on one of the Buffalo. The Buffalo, being smarter than your average bear, managed to circle around and sneak up on Big Jim and his guide. Upon seeing the Buffalo rushing toward them, the guide said calmly, “Shoot quick, Sir”.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377153
the (((SPLC))) seemed to dislike him https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/henry-harpending
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377167
” (((SPLC)))”: This is about as silly as the old “Scots-Irish” euphemism.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377205
Sorry to see him gone, The 10,000 Year Explosion was a great book.
One of our Paisanos was a member of the Safari Club with a mini museum of hunting trophies in his home in Palos Verdes. He had a story of how wily and dangerous the Cape Buffalo were. He was once tracking one along a game path through elephant grass and kept following, but didn’t seem to be closing in on it. He stopped in his tracks when he spotted a shiny black patch of nose just ahead of him behind the wall of grass along the track. He realized that it had led him into a looped trail, backed into the grass and was waiting for him to come around again, then take him from behind when he passed it. Because of the close quarters he decided to just back up and get out of there rather than risk shooting at close quarters where he would only have time to get one round off.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377224
even though some of his theories are quite wrong.
Harpending seemed to be an intelligent and courageous man, and the world is worse off for losing him.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377231
Loved the 10 000 year revolution. Sorry that I will never have the chance to meet him. Not sure if he would have liked me, but even if he did not it would have been a good experience for me.
I liked the story that Steve posted and Harpendings honesty about how the bushmen saw him.
Requiescat in pace.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377232
If you haven’t read “The 10,000 Year Explosion” do so. It is going to influence a lot of people for a very long time. RIP Henry, but may your words continue to piss off the closed minded.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377234
“The innocent anthropologist” has the same smell of truth that Harpendings story has. Does anyone here know what he though about it ? Should have asked him.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377235
Harpending was not only a great scientist but also a courageous man who will be remembered. I learned much from him and admired his commitment to research and honesty.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377237
A good obituary for an important man.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377247
Steve did you watch Wrestlemania 32?
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377255
Sorry to hear that. I couldn’t evaluate any of his work, but in the few exchanges I had with him over the Internet he was open-minded and generous. That’s pretty rare, both within the “HBD” community and without.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377257
While it’s true the SPLC has a sprinkling of bad people on it’s hate list, in general to be disliked by the SPLC is as good a recommendation for your character as I can imagine.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377267
Oh, damn. So, so sad. RIP, Henry.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377279
He was a honest scientist in dark times for scientific probity and that takes as much courage as hunting Cape buffalo in the Kalahari.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377280
“You can find out what happened here.”
I’ve read that story multiple times. It never gets old. RIP HH.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377281
I liked the story that Steve posted and Harpendings honesty about how the bushmen saw him.
Yes, there are some good lessons in that story.
Requiescat in pace.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377285
Kind of spergy to ask that in this thread.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377288
Slightly off topic, but regarding hunting in Africa, liberals and that famous African population explosion graph (most important graph in the world). Liberals don’t like hunting and they like African population growth, the hunting they probably don’t like because they don’t like animals being harmed, but the fact of the matter is that if Africa continues with its explosion then all those animals will die. The cold hard reality is that wild animals are killed off to make way for cattle grazing, hunting areas are actually good for the animals that are hunted, otherwise they face extinction, either provide money for Africans via hunting ares or Africa will turn into one giant cattle farm.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377329
Sad news. A scholar and a gentleman by all accounts. Commiserations to his family and to Greg too.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377334
Like…?
Harpending seemed to be an intelligent and courageous man, and the world is worse off for losing him.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377338
May history be kinder to him than most of his peers were.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377339
West Hunter — Henry Harpending
He suffered a stroke 3 weeks ago. Within a few days, he also had a MRSA infection in his lungs. The docs eventually cleared that, but his lungs never recovered.
If a nosocomial MRSA infection, or complications from one, killed him, his family ought to sue.
Modern disinfectants and sterilization can keep the risk down, but it's always there. As American and European hospitals are staffed, and populated, increasingly, by Third Worlders, look for the risk to go up. Part of the reason that doctors were traditionally well-compensated is that they ran a greater risk of contracting infectious diseases.
It's a little more complicated than this but yes, it is entirely possible that hospital's negligence/incompetence killed/contributed to death. These days, MRSA swab test is done on all hospital admissions. That is because many people carry MRSA for years and are completely asymptomatic - until something really bad happens. If Henry's test was negative, hospital will most likely be found liable. At the very least, the family ought to find out exactly what it was and get all existing records that concern MRSA in the lungs.
Worth doing even if it only prevents another deaths.
UNfun fact: Every year, more people die from hospital-induced sepsis than from car accidents. The public awareness of the former is nil, huge of the latter.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377340
This is… horrible. What a huge loss. RIP and come back in some form or another.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377351
Harpending was honored with his own page on the SPLC web site:
Henry Harpending is a controversial anthropologist at the University of Utah who studies human evolution and, in his words, “genetic diversity within and between human populations.”
I call the casual reader’s attention to the URL of the page on HH:
www . splcenter . org / fighting-hate / extremist-files / individual / henry-harpending
However there is nothing “extremist” about the SPLC.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377373
Condolences Steve for losing your friend and to his friends and family. I read “The 10,000 Year Explosion” based on your review/recommendation and was quite glad I did. An impressive man and highly gifted. RIP and Godspeed…
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377379
I don’t really know much about Harpending, other than hearing him associated with Cochran. However, if he is esteemed by Steve and has all the right enemies, he must have been a good guy. RIP.
*Spoilers*
That video… my God. That Cape Buffalo calf surviving an attack by multiple larger lions and a crocodile… that is honey badger levels of toughness. Very impressive.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377389
I once had a doctor at a San Diego naval hospital say to a group of us, “Stay out of here, if you can. If you’re really sick, sure, this is the place you’ve got to be, but it’s inherently unhealthy.”
Modern disinfectants and sterilization can keep the risk down, but it’s always there. As American and European hospitals are staffed, and populated, increasingly, by Third Worlders, look for the risk to go up. Part of the reason that doctors were traditionally well-compensated is that they ran a greater risk of contracting infectious diseases.
They also put in cameras at the hand wash stations to track medical staff, and officials were flabbergasted at how little hand washing was going on among the people who should know better.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377393
Yeah, but big game sport hunting? Please. If there is one activity Ashkenazi Jews will not be caught doing, it’s big game sport hunting or hunting in general. Most are big animal lovers and it’s the reason why you see Ashkenazi Jews in Congress having the highest ratings from animal welfare organizations. There is something about higher IQ that inclines someone to compassion for animals and other human beings.
Sure.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377413
Couldn’t help but think of ‘The Short Happy Life Of Francis Macomber.’
http://www15.uta.fi/FAST/US1/REF/macomber.html
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377434
“how difficult hunting bison and elk with thrusting spears must have been”: yeah, and they were the big European elks, not the titchy American elk.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377463
‘Henry smoked.’ Oh the horror.
I have noticed that doctors are among the worst for this variant of Last Man mentality. As a young doctor, I certainly was. It blends genuine scientific interest in the root causes of illness and death with the ego-preserving need to maintain a professional distance from one’s personal death – the young are always immortal, and none more immortal than young doctors.
Later, I realized people come as a package. The same drives that made Henry take to Africa, made him hunt that buffalo, were part of why he smoked.
Would an artist rather be an alcoholic Hemingway or a nebbish? Who wouldn’t trade tobacco to be the kind of man who could co-author a book as important as The Ten Thousand Year Explosion?
Thanks for bringing Greg and Henry together, Steve, and for being modest enough to wait until now to tell most of us that.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377464
I’m the same age as Henry and his buffalo hunting story reminds me of my own (and many another’s) foolish youth, armed with an absolute conviction of one’s own invincibility, lucky to get out alive.
In any event he did survive and it was his and Gregory’s partnership decades later that makes Henry most memorable. Like American pioneers of old they went bravely, though not naively, where others feared to tread, pushing back the frontiers of acceptable truth in the field of human evolution. And in doing so they paved the way to a future civilization more realistic in its approaches to some of the thorniest problems that afflict Western societies today.
If our culture and civilization does manage to survive with its core values more or less intact those two will deserve a statue of some sort, maybe something in the style of Remington.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377481
also huge numbers of animals are killed to satisfy chinese demand for use in their occult rituals or herbal medicine scams
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377482
Aside from the constant virtue signalling this is a fairly decent introduction to Harpending’s popular writing and speaking regarding his research. However, be warned, judging from this example, the $PLC seems to regard any application of Darwinian evolutionary theory to human beings about the same way as Bishop Samuel Wilberforce did.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377497
Harpending seemed to be an intelligent and courageous man, and the world is worse off for losing him.
Feeding trolls and morons just encourages them.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377500
OT
Aren’t multiculturalists looking for a brown European future in for a rude awakening when eventually the brown population of Europe…turns white. Since that’s what happens evolutionary to people’s skin color in this region.
According to the Out-of-Africa model, Europe was already settled by blacks and browns. It’s just that they turned white the longer they stayed in Nordic climates. The colder, the whiter.
So there’s really no point in bringing foreigners to Europe to create a multi-toned future. Sooner or later, they will still be the dreaded White Man! Nor will there be a multi-cultural future as a dominant culture will eventually emerge.
So we go from White, European Europe to a mixed-color, mixed-culture Europe, only to end up with a White, European Europe. Maybe leave well enough alone!
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377505
Very sad news. A very interesting thinker who will be missed by many.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377565
I have noticed that doctors are among the worst for this variant of Last Man mentality. As a young doctor, I certainly was. It blends genuine scientific interest in the root causes of illness and death with the ego-preserving need to maintain a professional distance from one’s personal death – the young are always immortal, and none more immortal than young doctors.Later, I realized people come as a package. The same drives that made Henry take to Africa, made him hunt that buffalo, were part of why he smoked.Would an artist rather be an alcoholic Hemingway or a nebbish? Who wouldn’t trade tobacco to be the kind of man who could co-author a book as important as The Ten Thousand Year Explosion?Thanks for bringing Greg and Henry together, Steve, and for being modest enough to wait until now to tell most of us that.
Guy lived into his 72nd year. I will consider myself lucky to live so long.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377569
Leftists love to mock the “I ain’t come from no monkey” type bible beaters, yet fail to notice that it’s equally absurd to claim that natural selection over thousands of generations of divergent evolution hasn’t produced significant genetically-influenced differences in behavior and cognition
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377570
Irish Elk With human for scale.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377572
Not entirely so . I have two ashkenazi acquaintances who are big game hunters & and I myself am a hunter. It is true though, that hunting is somewhat frowned upon in jewish tradition as the province of Esau, but the jews most likely to despise hunting , i.e. PETA types, also have the least allegiance to the tradition
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377574
“Finally we had some meat in camp. Unfortunately it turned out to be completely inedible. There was hardly a trace of fat anywhere in the animal, and like everyone in the Kalahari we craved and dreamed about fat. We boiled the tongue all the next afternoon, hours and hours, and at the end we could hardly cut it with a knife.”
So, apparently it didn’t taste just like chicken.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377580
Good point. I guess that the Chinese really are as intelligent as everyone gives them credit for but all of this eating ground up tiger penises or whatever is really stupid.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377605
Good riddance, you tauricide bastard. If it weren’t for the fact that I’m an atheist and a scientific empirist, I would tell you to rot in hell.
People that kill animals for fun deserve to have all of their limbs ripped clean from the sockets and sodium hydroxide thrown on the wounds.
You kiss your Cuddles with that mouth?
Interesting claim. I'm currently teaching a course on ethical theory, and can't think of a single one that would support this claim. Can you give me a nutshell summary of your own ethical theory? It must be quite lively and imaginative.
You don't even know what the word "empiricist" means, you bloviating idiot.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377615
The SPLC think Henry’s explanation on the superior intelligence of Jews was derived from the Talmudic scholarship one subscribed to (but certainly not originated) by Kevin MacDonald.
Henry Harpending’s field work among the Bushmen hunter gatherers must have given him insights into humanity that were truly unique. I suppose that understanding of the differences made genetic explanations plausible to him, he seems to have been a Napoleon Chagnon-type character– bringing home the bushmeat and smoking. A member of the National Academy of Sciences with too much of the hunter mentality to be silenced by fear. He may not have know what to expect with the buffalo, but he knew what the personal costs of going out on a limb with bio-logical anthropology would be, and he wasn’t scared.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377627
Contrary to what the SPLC say, it is certainly not true that Henry’s occupational profile explanation for the superior intelligence of Jews was derived from the Talmudic scholarship one subscribed to (but certainly not originated) by Kevin MacDonald. Was it really so difficult to understand the difference?
Henry Harpending’s field work among the Bushmen hunter gatherers must have given him insights into humanity that were truly unique. I suppose that understanding of the differences that were forcefully apparent in Africa made genetic explanations plausible to him, he seems to have been a Napoleon Chagnon-type character– bringing home the bushmeat and smoking. A member of the National Academy of Sciences with too much of the hunter mentality to be silenced by fear. He may not have know what to expect with the buffalo, but he knew what the personal costs of going out on a limb with bio-logical anthropology would be, and he wasn’t scared.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377629
Most (Ashkenazi Jews) are big animal lovers and it’s the reason why you see Ashkenazi Jews in Congress having the highest ratings from animal welfare organizations. There is something about higher IQ that inclines someone to compassion for animals and other human beings.
Sure.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377646
Aren't multiculturalists looking for a brown European future in for a rude awakening when eventually the brown population of Europe...turns white. Since that's what happens evolutionary to people's skin color in this region.
According to the Out-of-Africa model, Europe was already settled by blacks and browns. It's just that they turned white the longer they stayed in Nordic climates. The colder, the whiter.
So there's really no point in bringing foreigners to Europe to create a multi-toned future. Sooner or later, they will still be the dreaded White Man! Nor will there be a multi-cultural future as a dominant culture will eventually emerge.
So we go from White, European Europe to a mixed-color, mixed-culture Europe, only to end up with a White, European Europe. Maybe leave well enough alone!
Yeah, but those same selection pressures aren’t working anymore. Others are, but they are overwhelmingly in favor of the fast breeders in this artificial world of plenty and safety you’ve created. Unless you get rid of that, there’s no reason for selection towards whatever it was that also had Whiteness tacked on to even take place.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377671
I think you mean instead of other human beings.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377694
Wow.
You kiss your Cuddles with that mouth?
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377704
“People that kill animals for fun deserve to have all of their limbs ripped clean from the sockets and sodium hydroxide thrown on the wounds.”
Interesting claim. I’m currently teaching a course on ethical theory, and can’t think of a single one that would support this claim. Can you give me a nutshell summary of your own ethical theory? It must be quite lively and imaginative.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377715
@vinteiuil
“Interesting claim. I’m currently teaching a course on ethical theory, and can’t think of a single one that would support this claim. Can you give me a nutshell summary of your own ethical theory? It must be quite lively and imaginative.”
Why are you trying to sound pedantic? You are clearly not intelligent, so drop the act.
“Support” my claim? Ethics is completely subjective, hence it does not need any supporting. Your point here is completely asinine and irrelevant.
I happen to think that killing animals for “sport”(entertainment), when one does not need it for nourishment to be barbaric, and that people that do this should be severely punished. In fact, if you are a negative utilitarian doing this is an utmost crime, which goes to show that you clearly don’t know the subject matter you teach.
Your students should get their tuition money back. LOL.
Harpending seems like something of a loose cannon, and I would question someone of his intelligence shooting from the hip in some of his writings, but in a practical sense this old buffalo had to go, as mercifully as possible.
Sorry I don't measure up to your standards of intelligence. But I'm still curious: what's your ethical theory? Is it "negative utilitarianism?"
As I understand it, most "negative utilitarians" would tend to oppose ripping people's limbs from their sockets - to say nothing of throwing sodium hydroxide on the resulting wounds - under any circumstances whatsoever.
But perhaps I've misunderstood the theory. Anything's possible.
"Ethics is completely subjective, hence it does not need any supporting."
Are you, by any chance, about 16 years old?
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377752
"Interesting claim. I’m currently teaching a course on ethical theory, and can’t think of a single one that would support this claim. Can you give me a nutshell summary of your own ethical theory? It must be quite lively and imaginative."
Why are you trying to sound pedantic? You are clearly not intelligent, so drop the act.
"Support" my claim? Ethics is completely subjective, hence it does not need any supporting. Your point here is completely asinine and irrelevant.
I happen to think that killing animals for "sport"(entertainment), when one does not need it for nourishment to be barbaric, and that people that do this should be severely punished. In fact, if you are a negative utilitarian doing this is an utmost crime, which goes to show that you clearly don't know the subject matter you teach.
Your students should get their tuition money back. LOL.
I understand your strong feelings for animals — I share them, often — but this particular beast wasn’t killed for sport; it was a threat in addition to being a likely source of food.
Harpending seems like something of a loose cannon, and I would question someone of his intelligence shooting from the hip in some of his writings, but in a practical sense this old buffalo had to go, as mercifully as possible.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377784
In any event he did survive and it was his and Gregory's partnership decades later that makes Henry most memorable. Like American pioneers of old they went bravely, though not naively, where others feared to tread, pushing back the frontiers of acceptable truth in the field of human evolution. And in doing so they paved the way to a future civilization more realistic in its approaches to some of the thorniest problems that afflict Western societies today.If our culture and civilization does manage to survive with its core values more or less intact those two will deserve a statue of some sort, maybe something in the style of Remington.
Oh c’mon. There is nothing overly groundbreaking in Harpending and Cochran’s work.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377804
It’s more likely they don’t hunt for the same reason they don’t hike.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377812
Henry Harpending was my cousin. He was extremely intelligent, low key, kind, humorous at times and one heck of an interesting person. He left a positive mark on this world. My thanks to those who wrote kind and touching comments. I was always proud of his academic accomplishments. He was the “star” of all the cousins and there were many ! Henry, you will be missed.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377817
Aren't multiculturalists looking for a brown European future in for a rude awakening when eventually the brown population of Europe...turns white. Since that's what happens evolutionary to people's skin color in this region.
According to the Out-of-Africa model, Europe was already settled by blacks and browns. It's just that they turned white the longer they stayed in Nordic climates. The colder, the whiter.
So there's really no point in bringing foreigners to Europe to create a multi-toned future. Sooner or later, they will still be the dreaded White Man! Nor will there be a multi-cultural future as a dominant culture will eventually emerge.
So we go from White, European Europe to a mixed-color, mixed-culture Europe, only to end up with a White, European Europe. Maybe leave well enough alone!
There is no survival advantage to having white skin that I can see. Some say it evolved so that our ancestors could get vitamin D from sun exposure. If that’s the case, the development of white skin would seem to be an over-correction. Even Scandinavian countries have very high levels of melanoma, and many of us can burn no matter where we are. Those MC1R mutations that give my skin it’s bright hue are certainly not beneficial. Frankly, even with bonnets, long sleeves, and wide brimmed hats, I don’t see how settlers of British descent managed to take all of that sun as they crossed the plains and deserts of what would become the United States.
Looks to me like it was just something that was allowed to happen because the people of the Europe covered their skin to protect themselves from the elements. Notice that it did NOT happen in other populations. The second lightest population – the East Asians – are not nearly as light as Europeans, particularly northern Europeans. Siberians, Eskimos, and Native Americans who lived in northern latitudes did not develop fair skin, and they seem to have done just fine. The natives of Tasmania were black as night, and they weren’t decimated by vitamin D deficiency (I’m aware that Tasmania is not as far south as Alaska is north, but you get my point).
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377866
"Interesting claim. I’m currently teaching a course on ethical theory, and can’t think of a single one that would support this claim. Can you give me a nutshell summary of your own ethical theory? It must be quite lively and imaginative."
Why are you trying to sound pedantic? You are clearly not intelligent, so drop the act.
"Support" my claim? Ethics is completely subjective, hence it does not need any supporting. Your point here is completely asinine and irrelevant.
I happen to think that killing animals for "sport"(entertainment), when one does not need it for nourishment to be barbaric, and that people that do this should be severely punished. In fact, if you are a negative utilitarian doing this is an utmost crime, which goes to show that you clearly don't know the subject matter you teach.
Your students should get their tuition money back. LOL.
Hey, Mr. Diaz, my friend – I don’t have to try to sound pedantic – it comes to me naturally!
Sorry I don’t measure up to your standards of intelligence. But I’m still curious: what’s your ethical theory? Is it “negative utilitarianism?”
As I understand it, most “negative utilitarians” would tend to oppose ripping people’s limbs from their sockets – to say nothing of throwing sodium hydroxide on the resulting wounds – under any circumstances whatsoever.
But perhaps I’ve misunderstood the theory. Anything’s possible.
“Ethics is completely subjective, hence it does not need any supporting.”
Are you, by any chance, about 16 years old?
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377882
Stay away from my cat you evil bastard Nick Diaz!
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377896
“If a nosocomial MRSA infection, or complications from one, killed him, his family ought to sue.”
It’s a little more complicated than this but yes, it is entirely possible that hospital’s negligence/incompetence killed/contributed to death. These days, MRSA swab test is done on all hospital admissions. That is because many people carry MRSA for years and are completely asymptomatic – until something really bad happens. If Henry’s test was negative, hospital will most likely be found liable. At the very least, the family ought to find out exactly what it was and get all existing records that concern MRSA in the lungs.
Worth doing even if it only prevents another deaths.
UNfun fact: Every year, more people die from hospital-induced sepsis than from car accidents. The public awareness of the former is nil, huge of the latter.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377904
I will pray for his soul. That being said, 72 years is a fairly good run for a man with lots of energy and who has succeeded at difficult tasks again and again. I have no doubt that his loss will be sadly felt by those whom he has left behind – this is not an easy world to live in.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1377912
Hunting isn’t merely frowned upon, it’s unclean. A bullet through the spine is not kosher slaughter.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1378017
He’s joking.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1378020
“…other human beings” except Whites.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1378022
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1378035
"Interesting claim. I’m currently teaching a course on ethical theory, and can’t think of a single one that would support this claim. Can you give me a nutshell summary of your own ethical theory? It must be quite lively and imaginative."
Why are you trying to sound pedantic? You are clearly not intelligent, so drop the act.
"Support" my claim? Ethics is completely subjective, hence it does not need any supporting. Your point here is completely asinine and irrelevant.
I happen to think that killing animals for "sport"(entertainment), when one does not need it for nourishment to be barbaric, and that people that do this should be severely punished. In fact, if you are a negative utilitarian doing this is an utmost crime, which goes to show that you clearly don't know the subject matter you teach.
Your students should get their tuition money back. LOL.
What if the big game hunter kills the lion, keeps the pelt and the natives keep the meat and eat it?
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1378040
[…] Harpending wasn’t particularly young, nor was his death unexpected, but I am still sad; I have enjoyed his work for years, and there will be no more. Steve Sailer has a nice eulogy. […]
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1378098
Henry Harpending was probably one of the more famous professors at the University of Utah, but the local Utah press hasn’t so much as even mentioned his passing – not even the allegedly conservative LDS Church-owned paper, The Deseret News.
Incidentally, the LDS Church leadership just requested their members (specifically their female members) help assist “refugees” resettle in the US. The Mormon Church has long been thought of as conservative, but their pronouncements on illegal immigration, Muslim immigration, and now refugees put them firmly and unmistakably in the camp of population replacement/cheap labor lobby advocacy. It’s a position they’ve been moving towards for at least a decade. I suspect it’s a position that will eventually cause a lot of their white members to leave. Their retention rates among that group have already shrunk substantially.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1378137
Hey, Mr. Diaz, my friend – I don’t have to try to sound pedantic – it comes to me naturally!
Sorry I don’t measure up to your standards of intelligence. But I’m still curious: what’s your ethical theory? Is it “negative utilitarianism?”
As I understand it, most “negative utilitarians” would tend to oppose ripping people’s limbs from their sockets – to say nothing of throwing sodium hydroxide on the resulting wounds – under any circumstances whatsoever.
But perhaps I’ve misunderstood the theory. Anything’s possible.
“Ethics is completely subjective, hence it does not need any supporting.”
Are you, by any chance, about 16 years old?”
You clearly did not understand my argument, You also clearly don’t understand what negative utilitarianism is. And, above all, you don’t understand what negative utilitarianism is as it pertains to my argument.
And I don’t know exactly why you assume that asking me if I am 16 years old would insult me, as the average 16 years old is smarter than you.
Not only didn't I understand your argument - I'm so terribly dim that I didn't even notice that you had made one!
So I guess you think that a doctrine dedicated to the minimization of pain/suffering/unhappiness would endorse torturing sport-hunters to death.
An interesting & provocative position. Perhaps I can invite you in to give a guest lecture.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1378166
Of course it would be more common among black children, but it’s not that common among any ethnic group. And again, Africans are on the far end of the spectrum, but they’re certainly not the only ethnic group in the country that’s darker than us Euro-Americans.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1378169
Literal nerd-rage/omega male rage
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1378187
Modern disinfectants and sterilization can keep the risk down, but it's always there. As American and European hospitals are staffed, and populated, increasingly, by Third Worlders, look for the risk to go up. Part of the reason that doctors were traditionally well-compensated is that they ran a greater risk of contracting infectious diseases.
My nurse girlfriend says that since the janitorial staff has become entirely non-white, cleanliness issues are a problem, but it’s more widespread than just the janitors.
They also put in cameras at the hand wash stations to track medical staff, and officials were flabbergasted at how little hand washing was going on among the people who should know better.
The problem isn't necessarily insufficient hand-washing. The problem is people who don't understand what the hand-washing is for - who view it has some kind of cleansing ritual rather than a purposeful act with a tangible outcome. A lot of people, apparently, just don't understand what germs are and how they cause disease; they aren't careful and don't think much about things. For example, order of operations is pretty important in germ control. If your cleaning a bathroom, start with the sink and faucet and finish up with the toilet. Not the other way round.
Procedures derived from scientific understanding are just magic to people who don't understand what motivated them.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1378195
Yes, of course, but you can give the meat away .
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1378222
Interesting claim. I'm currently teaching a course on ethical theory, and can't think of a single one that would support this claim. Can you give me a nutshell summary of your own ethical theory? It must be quite lively and imaginative.
Nick is not going to offer anything coherent. He carries an inflated sense of his abilities; when things don’t go his way (which is always) he nurses a low level rage at the humanity around him. Thus he lashes out at hunters, etc.
Must. Grow. Up.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1378226
Incidentally, the LDS Church leadership just requested their members (specifically their female members) help assist "refugees" resettle in the US. The Mormon Church has long been thought of as conservative, but their pronouncements on illegal immigration, Muslim immigration, and now refugees put them firmly and unmistakably in the camp of population replacement/cheap labor lobby advocacy. It's a position they've been moving towards for at least a decade. I suspect it's a position that will eventually cause a lot of their white members to leave. Their retention rates among that group have already shrunk substantially.
It is a hallmark of our time that institutions move inexorably to the left and adopt political correctness.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1378237
“If it weren’t for the fact that I’m an atheist and a scientific empirist, I would tell you to rot in hell.”
You don’t even know what the word “empiricist” means, you bloviating idiot.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1378256
They also put in cameras at the hand wash stations to track medical staff, and officials were flabbergasted at how little hand washing was going on among the people who should know better.
“They also put in cameras at the hand wash stations to track medical staff, and officials were flabbergasted at how little hand washing was going on among the people who should know better.”
The problem isn’t necessarily insufficient hand-washing. The problem is people who don’t understand what the hand-washing is for – who view it has some kind of cleansing ritual rather than a purposeful act with a tangible outcome. A lot of people, apparently, just don’t understand what germs are and how they cause disease; they aren’t careful and don’t think much about things. For example, order of operations is pretty important in germ control. If your cleaning a bathroom, start with the sink and faucet and finish up with the toilet. Not the other way round.
Procedures derived from scientific understanding are just magic to people who don’t understand what motivated them.
Every profession is in the process of dumbing down. Medicine isn't immune, especially at a large urban hospital.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1378265
Why, Mr. Diaz, you surprising man…
Not only didn’t I understand your argument – I’m so terribly dim that I didn’t even notice that you had made one!
So I guess you think that a doctrine dedicated to the minimization of pain/suffering/unhappiness would endorse torturing sport-hunters to death.
An interesting & provocative position. Perhaps I can invite you in to give a guest lecture.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1378467
You’re right, of course – but I enjoy the occasional bit of fun bating the lighter folk.
Must. Grow. Up.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1378470
It is a strange kind of susceptibility to rickets that gives the average black far denser bones than the average white. Maybe blacks secretly drink lots of milk!
Europeans did not become white skinned until tens of thousands of years after they arrived in northern Europe.* There were still dark skinned light eyed Europeans in the mesolithic. As a result sunlight being too weak for dark skin to make vitamin D is a discredited theory, no longer the subject of informed discussion. Going by the book Professor Harpending never thought much of the VIt D thing by the way.
*I think I’m the only person who suggested that might be the case before it was found to be so.
Mesolithic people at the Scandinavia level of north appear to have been light skinned.
Mesolithic people at the France level seem to have been light eyed but dark skinned.
People with access to a lot of seafood wouldn't need lighter skin - hence Eskimo etc - so if skin lightening was originally connected to Vitamin D (and I'm not saying it was) you might only expect it to be selected for in the interior far north and not close to a coast.
If so then somewhere north of the Caucasus / Altai would be the epicenter.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1378536
The problem isn't necessarily insufficient hand-washing. The problem is people who don't understand what the hand-washing is for - who view it has some kind of cleansing ritual rather than a purposeful act with a tangible outcome. A lot of people, apparently, just don't understand what germs are and how they cause disease; they aren't careful and don't think much about things. For example, order of operations is pretty important in germ control. If your cleaning a bathroom, start with the sink and faucet and finish up with the toilet. Not the other way round.
Procedures derived from scientific understanding are just magic to people who don't understand what motivated them.
Medical staff = doctors and nurses. They understand the issue, some just choose to ignore it.
Every profession is in the process of dumbing down. Medicine isn’t immune, especially at a large urban hospital.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1378633
Never ate venison. It is Hunted. Not slaughtered by a Shochet.
http://www.aaronsgourmet.com/html/glatt_kosher_venison.html
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1378679
OT:
A new Steven Pinker BBC podcast about language that came out today.
Steven Pinker on Language
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1378749
Venison for the kosher market is raised and slaughtered by a schochet on a farm in upstate NY.
http://www.aaronsgourmet.com/html/glatt_kosher_venison.html
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1378966
https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2014/08/16/i-cant-afford-to-think-about-that/
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1379474
Clarification: I think I was the first to suggest that light eyes came before light skin.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1379544
Clarification: I think I was the first to suggest that light eyes came before light skin.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1379547
From a Harpending comment at Westhunter I just read:
“My view (personal again) is that much of social science is a fraud and blunder fully comparable to other great 20th century intellectual blunders like Marxist political theory, Freudian psychology, Fascism, and so on.”
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1379955
They also put in cameras at the hand wash stations to track medical staff, and officials were flabbergasted at how little hand washing was going on among the people who should know better.
Methods that work with guilt people don’t work with shame people – they need someone watching them.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1380557
Depends on your definition of north.
Mesolithic people at the Scandinavia level of north appear to have been light skinned.
Mesolithic people at the France level seem to have been light eyed but dark skinned.
People with access to a lot of seafood wouldn’t need lighter skin – hence Eskimo etc – so if skin lightening was originally connected to Vitamin D (and I’m not saying it was) you might only expect it to be selected for in the interior far north and not close to a coast.
If so then somewhere north of the Caucasus / Altai would be the epicenter.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1380563
Mesolithic people at the Scandinavia level of north appear to have been light skinned.
Mesolithic people at the France level seem to have been light eyed but dark skinned.
People with access to a lot of seafood wouldn't need lighter skin - hence Eskimo etc - so if skin lightening was originally connected to Vitamin D (and I'm not saying it was) you might only expect it to be selected for in the interior far north and not close to a coast.
If so then somewhere north of the Caucasus / Altai would be the epicenter.
In the Ice Age Sweden was under a giant glacier., Anyway there is more UV at high latitudes per 24 hours. No one takes that UV idea idea seriously any more, especially as white skin genes have been discovered to be under selection in India and Ethiopia https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2015/08/17/something-else/ (In my opinion Denmark is the ground zero of the white race, it has the most feminine digit ratio of all).
Henry Harpending never seemed terribly convinced by the latitude (but only in Europe) theory. I meant to ask him if he was surprised by the light skin colour of the Bushmen, and them being so pale they get badly sunburned in their native habitat (yes it is perfectly true Bushmen suffer sunburn). Unfortunately he was not very active on West Hunter and mentioned his health problems were slowing him down, so I hesitated to ask such a busy man. Now no one will ever know what he thought. I wish I had seized the opportunity.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1380779
RIP
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1381660
[…] Greg Cochran has the sad, not too surprising news about Henry Harpending. Sailer has a nice RIP. […]
http://www.unz.com/isteve/henry-harpending-rip/#comment-1386378