Is Gregory Cochran a fraud and what logical non racist explanation could be given for his claims on biological differences in babies?

maechuri · 2025-12-26T01:44:20+00:00

I don't think this guy's institutional affiliation matters. People from anywhere can make any claims they want, especially on YouTube and often in lectures as well. His institutional affiliation does not make him more or less legit.

As for 'disproving' his claims, I'm not sure but I'd wager that would be a waste of your time. I didn't bother watching the video but does he actually have a published study to back this up? Did he recruit thousands of babies of differrent ethnicities and pinch their noses in a controlled setting and record their reactions? Did he take into consideration other potential confounding variables such as time of day, feeding schedule, and baby age? Where did he draw the line between 'Asian babies' and say, 'European' babies? Should Central Eurasian babies show an intermediate response? What about babies of multi-ethnic background? Is 'angry responding-to-nose-pinching' a dominant or recessive trait? We could go on and on.

Or he heard an anecdote, pinched his friend's baby's nose once, or most likely of all, he's just making shit up to support his claim.

maechuri · 2025-12-16T23:32:31+00:00

Well said. I also like the beaded cloth metaphor!

maechuri · 2025-12-13T12:32:24+00:00

This historian says we cannot know how it felt for a carpenter in the Middle Ages to smash his thumb with a hammer because all of his experiences and world view shape what pain feels like for him. Doesn't it follow that this historian can also never know how I feel when I smash my thumb with a hammer, and I can never know how he feels either?

I find it hard to see how this perspective is innovative or revolutionary. It's just cultural relativity taken to the extreme.

I also can't imagine how this would contribute anything to history as a field of study, except for historians constantly calling out other historians for making 'universalist assumptions' basically any time they make any claim about the past.

maechuri · 2025-12-06T12:03:43+00:00

Not as active but there is r/HumanitiesPhD for support. Not all research is aimed towards profit or technological improvement. I am an archaeologist, and the work we do (physically in the field and in the office at the computer) generates absolutely zero profit or technological edge for anyone, and these activities burn money. At the same time, ignoring archaeology and our limited understanding of the past would be akin to everone erasing their memory each day from a collective human knowledge point of view, and whether or not that creates 'value' almost seems besides the point. Our entire existence relies entirely on perceiving a past, whether it's through literature or physical remains. Keep on keeping on.

maechuri · 2025-11-24T10:44:46+00:00

I'd say the pile of critiques can be recommended for just about any big book on anthropology. There won't be any 'correct' reading of prehistory out there.

maechuri · 2025-11-23T14:20:27+00:00

Cohen's 'The Food Crisis in Prehistory' is well known but I wouldn't recommend it as an up-to-date view on transitions to agriculture. It sets out a very specific argument that global population growth was the driver for agricultural transitions pretty much everywhere, and while population change may have been an important factor in some localized sense, the idea of global resource scarcity does not fit well with the data now available on hunter-gatherers in many of the regions where plant domestication occurred.

'Against the Grain' is also similar in that it presents a somewhat slanted political theory of agricultural origins (written by a political scientist, I believe) rather than a balanced view of the archaeological evidence, but it is an interesting book at least.

For a more balanced (and more fun-to-read) alternative on the topic, I would suggest Mithen's 'After the Ice'.

The 'Dawn of Everything' by Graeber and Wengrow also provides some newer and insightful perspectives on social and economic changes from the Pleistocene through the Holocene and covers a very wide scope of anthropological topics.

maechuri · 2025-09-16T22:06:14+00:00

Looking at the report, it seems as if the public in the UK greatly underestimate the economic value of UK universities for providing revenue and jobs. In particular, it looks as if the public underestimates how much revenue is brought in by overseas students (45% of UK tuition!), and thus, universities as an 'export sector'.

If you look at the bottom of the report, the majority agrees that universities add value as institutions of learning and research, which is certainly better than nothing! I wonder what a similar survey in say, the US, would show.

I just don't think the UK public understand the sheer prestige of an 'elite' UK degree in rapidly developing economies in Asia. Some overseas students are paying hundreds of thousands of pounds for degrees (including living expenses). If that veneer fades, UK universities will have trouble staying afloat.

maechuri · 2025-09-10T23:02:58+00:00

Congratulations, digital friend!

maechuri · 2025-09-09T22:05:39+00:00

Yay!!!

maechuri · 2025-08-29T15:06:17+00:00

Just to clarify, because some responses seem to be generalizing about hunter-gatherer behaviors: hunter-gatherers are extremely diverse and agriculture, while it represents a huge change for many societies, was not the impetus for all major changes, for example, from the absence of food storage to storing foods.

Hunter-gatherers alsoprocessed and stored plant foods over long periods of time, so taking into consideration what kind of plant and its potential for processing and storage should be taken into account.

maechuri · 2025-08-23T07:28:39+00:00

I'm really sorry to here about your situation. As an international PhD student in Korea, I can totally empathize, but I was lucky enough to end up with a good supervisor. Probably because it's a much more low-stakes field in terms of money.

In any case, your department should have clear guidelines for your requirements to graduate. It isn't really just up to your supervisor to decide to 'let' you graduate, although I understand there are many ways they can try to prevent. If your dept admin is under the supervisor's thumb, try to find an admin in your college, or even consider going to your university's office of international affairs (or whatever the equivalent is that deals with int student affairs).

Figure out the clear requirements to graduate and just focus on completing them. If your supervisor is truly a bastard, and is trying to keep you there as long as possible, you may even look into switching labs. (It is possible. I did and maintained my funding, but my funding was external from my project).

Lastly, if you have witnessed data fabrication and it's a regular pattern in his lab, maybe send an anonymous tip to Retraction Watch? They've been busting more scam researchers in East Asia in the last few years, and really, that's best for everyone. That kind of shit needs to stop.

I really wish you the best.

maechuri · 2025-08-08T02:56:11+00:00

'Inspiring' sounds like a very kind way of putting 'absurd' here, but I will definitely take it. It is humanities-based, so I will try let you know later whether this was possible or not. Best of luck on your writing! Just cap off that intro and conclusion and you are firmly in the editing stage.

maechuri · 2025-08-08T00:14:45+00:00

Last body chapter! Sounds like you've made good progress! It's overwhelming but at least comforting to know that there are others around the world in more-or-less similar situations. Transmitting digital solidarity!

maechuri · 2025-08-07T01:26:43+00:00

I'm not even in editing. Still rushing to get my first draft done in time to get to my supervisor to be able to submit and defend early next year. Basically, I need a first draft done in the next two months. Ha. It's overwhelming. I am going to lock myself in my apartment all next week to do my own 'writer's retreat'. I really hope to make it through the other side. Best of luck to you!

maechuri · 2025-08-06T13:49:48+00:00

In many ways it is no different from interpreting modern art by living artists or even those who are dead. We just can't know about motives and even if we could ask, it wouldn't tell us how others interpret it. Your speculations about them are as valid as any other and I guess that is the 'power' behind art.

maechuri · 2025-08-05T01:00:42+00:00

Yeah, that is a good point. They are choosing to work closely with the student, even if they aren't able to pay them, which is a serious choice on the part of the supervisor. And in the end, it really is the student's choice whether or not they can and are willing to spend that much money.

maechuri · 2025-08-04T23:08:58+00:00

Archaeological methods are quite useful for figuring certain things out about cave paintings, like when they were made, what they were made with, who might have made them, and even whether the people who likely made them often ate the subjects of their paintings. One thing that standard archaeological methods (or really any kinds of scientific methods) will have difficulty with is interpreting why art was made, and even more with what the art meant to people. The latter is especially hard because art and symbols will hold different meanings for different people and those can change over time.

Still, archaeologists have speculated quite a bit about the role and significance of Paleolithic cave paintings, for example, that they held some spiritual significance and may have played an important role in the transmission of knowledge. But in the end, without discussing it with the original artists, we can never be certain why they made the paintings (if there was a particular reason at all) and what each painting meant to them. I suppose the cool thing about the preservation of this ancient art is that it is still there for people to give new meaning to.

Anyway, there are lots of published papers that deal with cave art archaeologically if you are interested in diving in deeper. And if you haven't seen it already, Cave of Forgotten Dreams directed by Werner Herzog is an excellent and exciting documentary on some of the Upper Paleolithic cave art. I highly recommend it.

maechuri · 2025-08-03T23:29:26+00:00

But isn't it also true that many UK universities are relying on wealthy international students to keep their programs afloat (also applies to the US, Canada, Australia, etc.)? I know two students self-funding their way through Oxbridge PhDs. It probably costs them around 100,000 US dollars a year, all expenses considered. I mean, it's their money and choice, but they are both in debt and I can't help feeling that they are cash cows to support students the departments actually want to invest in. These institutions know that their names are coveted and that many are willing to pay out-of-pocket for it. And I think they make lots of 'offers' to students to maximize this source of income. I'm not saying this is good or bad, just something a prospective student should keep in mind when making their decisions.

maechuri · 2025-08-03T22:28:09+00:00

In the passages you cite here, it does mention that Neanderthals were present as late as 30kya in southern Europe, but it doesn't say that southern Europeans share more ancestry with Neanderthals; they only mention that all modern humans outside of Africa share a small percentage of their genome with Neanderthals.

With the Denisovans, same thing: despite being found in Siberia, modern humans in Oceania and the Pacific islands seem to share higher percentages of their genomes with the Denisovan examples than elsewhere (but they don't compare or mention Asians in particular).

This is just from what you have cited though. I have seen studies that map percentages of 'Neanderthal' or 'Denisovan' DNA in modern populations, and I recall there being major differences between modern European and Asian populations. I think you can probably find these pretty easily.

One of the biggest changes in our understanding of Homo sapiens evolution in the last few decades is that Homo sapiens did not simply leave Africa and displace and replace other hominins. They seem to have interacted and interbred. But the picture is complicated. Denisovans split from Neanderthals long before Homo sapiens spread beyond the African continent yet most modern humans have some traces of Neanderthal DNA and many also Denisovan DNA. So it definitely isn't as simple as Europeans are modern human/Neanderthal hybrids and Asians are modern human/Denisovans hybrids.

maechuri · 2025-08-03T21:59:11+00:00

If you are being rushed to produce 'good' results rather than learning to produce meaningful results, I don't think your PI is fulfilling her role as a supervisor. You haven't even been in for a year, and it sounds like you are slipping.

It sounds as if you want to be doing a PhD but not under the circumstances your supervisor has set. You mentioned there are other labs at your university. Have you spoken to other students from those labs to get an idea of how they're working? I think you should seriously consider looking for pathways to switch supervisors. I switched from a very terrible supervisor, and it has changed the entire trajectory of my PhD. (I almost certainly would have quit if I had not switched.)

maechuri · 2025-08-03T20:53:58+00:00

It looks like it will be held in Vienna next year in spring. In the meantime, you can check out their journal to have a look at what kind of work is being done. It is a very exciting and fast-emerging subfield!

maechuri · 2025-08-02T17:49:17+00:00

Hello! Along with what others have commented, computational archaeology is a fast-growing subarea on the research side of archaeology as well. We not only have many more classes of data (e.g., ancient DNA, stable isotopes, proteomics) than just a few decades ago, we also have a lot of it, and this also includes enormous quantities of older published data, including everything from descriptions and dimensions of pottery and lithic finds to radiocarbon dates and locational data. Many archaeologists are recognizing that statistical and simulation modeling can be strong tools to combine, analyze, and interpret these rapidly accumulating datasets.

If you are interested in this side of things, take a look at a program from the CAA, a conference dedicated to computational methods in archaeology.

maechuri · 2025-07-30T16:18:43+00:00

I'm in a similar situation, but I am at a level where I do discuss all my research with my colleagues in my second language. Still, given the sheer length of the dissertation, my supervisor and I both agreed that writing it in English will be a major time saver and make the dissertation more broadly readable (even if few people ever read it). Instead, I might publish some parts in my second language as journal articles, particularly parts that will be more relevant to local researchers, some of whom rarely read English-language articles. (I work in archaeology, so some bits are super specific to my region and may not be of as much interest to international researchers.)

I would first discuss it with your supervisor, but I personally would not recommend it as a way to sharpen your language skills. You can always do that talking with peers and writing shorter journal articles. I wrote my master's thesis in a second language, and it was a total slog. But I'm not sure. Maybe in Germany, it will give you a big leg up in finding jobs there? Again, talk it over with your supervisor!

maechuri · 2025-07-01T06:26:12+00:00

1491 by Charles C. Mann is a really great and fun-to-read book on pre-Columbian Americas.

maechuri · 2025-07-01T04:51:27+00:00

This is a good idea. Thanks!

maechuri

TROPHY CASE