This Bulletin Board is administered by Kevin Callahan TA.
This Bulletin Board is for notices, postings, suggestions, questions, and requests. For example, if you have a question or comment, (or would like to complain about something)send it in. Lost and Found items can also be posted. What you send will be posted at the bottom of this page usually within 24 hours (unless I am unusually busy or out of town).
(NAME)2. nonymous (comments) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's the deal with the music videos?????? 3. It would be helpfull to provide lecture notes (not just outlines) in the web site for when we miss class. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- (More comments) I am happy with the class 4. A response from Kevin C. The music videos are just demos of the RealPlayer video technology that we will be incorporating soon with subjects related to the course. 5. Douglas Frink (comments) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looks great, and is actually informative. Please visit my site if you have the time. It is an introduction to a new "absolute" dating technique called the Oxidizable Carbon Ratio (OCR). //members.aol.com/dsfrink/ocr/ocrpage.htm Angela Duray (comments) I think this website is great and I am very impressed with all of the information contained in it. W. Simpson (comments) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, all I can say as of now, is that this site looks highly, very highly informative, and complete. Later, when I have more time, I'll return to study it's offerings in greater detail. This is an area of extreme interest to me personally. As I have visited other worthy sites, this one seems to be of much greater detail and background information for a more complete coverage. If the opening page could be improved, I am afraid that that may reduce it's overall impact of what is truly available. lucky@ix.netcom.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------- (More comments) I like the website Kevin: I am very impressed with your website. What great fun it must be to take this course today! I feel like it was the dark ages when I last taught there...it was 1993....how quickly things change. Next time I teach, I will definitely recommend your website. What a benefit for U of M students this is! All the best, Debra Walker Kevin - It really IS a great website.Keep up the good work and good luck! Tina Bettina Arnold University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Note from Kevin C.: During the last 48 hours I have been getting email from around the country from different academic departments that have seen the announcement of the website. 1) This morning I got this from Milford Wolpoff at U Mich. "I'm very impressed indeed, and have passed the address on to my next year's TA's. I'd be pleased if we can even come close! Is there anything you need from me?" 2)I received this from the U of Texas - Austin Hi Kevin, Say, GREAT!!! site! You've obviously put lots of time into developing all of those materials and the numerous links out. If you want a rotating animated skull to add in, we've posted one of our 3D laser scans to my web site. Feel free to download and add in. We'll be releasing some virtual labs later this summer and I'll keep you posted as to the when. Keep up the excellent work! Best regards, John John Kappelman Associate Professor Department of Anthropology The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX 78712-1086 USA 3)This came in from the U of Connecticut Lovely site! I could get used to black backgrounds, now that I see what you've done with it. Lots of neat ideas. Tom Terry Thomas M. Terry, Associate Professor Dept. of Molecular & Cell Biology, U-44 The University of Connecticut Storrs, CT 06269 4)The U of Oklahoma Zoology Dept. also is apparently considering linking to our site. Willy This is the best informational website I have seen in a long time and I'm sure it will be very important to my success in this class. Kevin, This is a neat site. This must be a fantastic resource for your students. What a great way to let students know about the class as well as to accommodate remote students. Ann Ann Treacy, Public Relations Specialist Minnesota Regional Network 2829 University Avenue SE Minneapolis MN 55414 Martin Kirchner (comments) It is hard to take notes in lecture. The class is OK, but this web site is cool!!!! Nam Dzuy Nguyen (comments) To: Mr. Johnston The class is really going well for me. I really enjoy being in both lecture and lab. I learn a great amount from you and from my TA, Eric Bangs. You are a great teacher. This website has lots of information and is very educational. I am very happy with this website. No need to add anything else. Thanks. jenny (comments) This is the best website that I have ever been too! Marvelous job! (More comments) I am happy with the class Darwin (Comments) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- If only items of low-class pop culture such as "Spice Girls" videos could have been considered a useful tool of anthropological education in my day! I would have studied the evolution of Natural Sex-lection. Darwin (Comments) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Did anyone notice that the description of this public bulletin board contains an incomplete sentence? "For example, if you have a question or comment, (or would like to complain about something)." Yes, I would like to complain about something, the incomplete phrase on this link. Oops you are right. Its been corrected. Thanks for the comment. KC Darwin (Comments) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Have all the messages that were sent to this board been positive, or does what gets posted undergo a 'Natural Selection?' -Chuck The only "negative" message I have gotten wasn't really negative but were some technical suggestions on improving web site speed some of which I've incorporated. It had more to do with web site evolution rather than human evolution. KC Anonymous (comments) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I think the lectures have been very good and very interesting, however, I personally think that it should have been in a larger lecture hall...everyone that I know, who has had this lecture, feels the same way. Room 125 of Willey is simply to small for this amount of students, 175 would be much better suited. Just one example of why i feel this is... I have to leave 30 minutes before lecture begins in order to insure that i will get a seat in the front of the hall and i live in Comstock Hall, only a 5-10min. walk. I'm only commenting on this so that if you can, which I don't know if it is possible to request a larger lecture hall it would over all be benifical to the class and the lecture. Dear Kevin: Your site looks great! I cruised around on it;great graphics. I checked out the link to Human Antiquity; it works fine but there is one slight problem-the link states that the authors are Feder and White. Yikes! I'm not sure who would be more upset: Make Park or Randy White. Anyway, it is a valuable site and I will direct my students to it. Take care. Kenny Feder Nicki Kirby I really like your website. At the present time I am a senior in High School but in the fall I will be attending Hamline University majoring in Anthropology (forensic) and Human Relations. The site is very informative for the field of study I have chosen. Thank you for making it accessible to the general public. I like the website Bulletin Board Comments (recipient) call0031@tc.umn.edu (name) Chris (C_EMail) cull0031@gold.tc.umn.edu (Comments) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I had e-mailed Kevin Johnston with some questions earlier this quarter and he suggested that I offer them to the class via this bulletin board. So, enjoy... My questions first concern the nature of a citing that I came across in the text for the Anthro 1101 class. In regards to the section pertaining to neoteny, the authors cite Stephen J. Gould as a source for Louis Bolk’s ideas on this subject, “In the 1920’s Dutch anatomist Louis Bolk noted that some of the most notable features of adult humans are possessed by the fetal or newborn stages of other mammals (see Gould 1977)” Feder & Park, p. 208). The citing for some reason ignores half of the argument made by Gould in the cited work. Yes, Gould had written an article in Ever Since Darwin, which is a collection of articles, on neoteny, but then in a subsequent article explores this and other ideas of Western science on the grounds that they are not born so much of an “objective” science but rather from “the conventional prejudice of white scientists: whites are superior, blacks are inferior” (Gould, 1981). The citing, which seems to support Bolk’s ideas, has grotesquely perverted Gould’s writing by ignoring part of the argument. Was Bolk’s work steeped in the ‘conventional prejudice of Western science’ that Gould wrote of? Perhaps this quote, which Feder & Park did not even allude to, will defend his case: “On the basis of my theory, I am obviously a believer in the inequality of races... In his fetal development the negro passes through a stage that has already become the final stage for the white man. If retardation continues in the negro, what is still a transitional stage may for this race also become a final one... L. Bolk, 1926” (Gould, 1977). Perhaps I should not be so hard on Bolk, he was optimistic enough to state that “It is possible for all other races to reach the zenith of development now occupied by the white race” (Gould 1977). The article that Feder & Park mention is found on page 63, and if one reads the entire article, it is less than 150 pages to the article in which Gould discusses Bolk’s socio-political motives, found on page 214. It could be that Feder & Park do not read thoroughly or that they select what they want to read. Whatever the case may be, they do not want you to read toughly. A weak move made by the authors that I would like to question is why do they not cite Gould’s widely known work The Mismeasure of Man in the section at the end of chapter eight entitled “For More Information”? They write “See Stephen Jay Gould’s Ever Since Darwin and The Panda’s Thumb for more on neoteny...” (Feder & Park, p. 213) but fail to make mention of The Mismeasure of Man neither in this section nor the bibliography. In this work, not a collection of works, Gould attacks neoteny without giving it the polite introduction that is found in Ever Since Darwin. Perhaps a quote such as “The white race appears to be the most progressive, as being the most retarded” (Gould, 1981) would mitigate the approval of neoteny. Anthropology as a discipline has frequently been used to justify the position of European male superiority by defining the other as somehow a lesser being, such as black people being less ‘neotenic’ than whites. This is not an isolated event nor is it only to prove white male superiority that Western science bussies itself in. Gould gives examples in The Mismeasure of Man where thinking such as this has ‘scientifically proved’ the superiority of white, European males of the upper class from cities. The other includes the female as well and an attempt at defining her as somehow inherently inferior is taking place in the Anthropology department, more specifically in room 20, Ford Hall. In this room stands a display case entitled “Paleopathology: Disease Viewed Through Time” that contains, amongst other exhibits, a female pelvis that suffered from parity pits, the disease having been pregnancy. I ask the females reading this if they enjoy having pregnancy, a natural function of their bodies, being defined as ‘disease.’ Disease carries many negative connotations to it, but as Neil Postman notes, “the authority of a definition rests entirely on its usefulness, not on its correctness” (Postman, 1988). I’m trailing off but would like to depart with a few last ideas... “[I]n most places, school is conceived as a form of indoctrination, the continuation of politics by gentle means. The idea that schooling should make the young compliant and easily accessible to the prejudices of their society is an old and venerable tradition... the tradition that requires the educators to condition the young to believe what they are told, in the way that they are told it” (Postman, 1988). In this case, consent can be won and shaped through the medium of the textbook, who’s “dogma is self-perpetuating” (Gould, 1977). Please respond. Gould, Stephen J. The Mismeasure of Man, Norton, New York, 1981 (Copies at our libraries are stolen) Gould, Stephen J. Ever Since Darwin, Norton, New York, 1977 Postman, Neil. "Defending against the Indefensible." In Conscientious Objections: Stirring Up Trouble About Language, Technology, and Education. New York: Alferd Knopf, 1988. AMANDA BEHLING (comments) I FOUND YOUR WEBSITE TO BE VERY INFORMATIVE AND IN DEPTH. I WAS AMAZED AT THE AMOUNT OF MATERIAL HERE. THIS WILL DEFINITELY BE A SITE I WILL VISIT AGAIN. Jason S. Sitzes (comments) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm "cruising" the web this afternoon for an assignment I'm doing in a physical anthro. course at Univ. of TN., Knox. As a whole this is one of the best web-sites I've EVER come across. Interesting, a great concept and the "extras" i.e. Spice Girls and traffic updates all add to this great site. Thought you should know someone out here is very impressed! Jason Sitzes jasonS13@aol.com From: Gail Ann Reed Date: Sat, 07 Jun 1997 17:40:10 -0700 To: Kevin J Johnston Subject: Re: Anthropology 1101 Human Origins Website Wow! your students are really lucky .. you've gone to a LOT of trouble to help them with this webpage. it makes me wish i were in minnesota so i could take the class ... :) i found it just now. im reading a book called "neanderthal," by john darnton, and this book caused me to look up some things on the web ... words like neanderthalensis, but i spelled it incorrectly, as neandertalensis, and that brought me to your webpage. anyway .. i now plan on spending some time searching around all the goodies there ... i think its amazing that you would take the time to bring all this information together for your classes ... like i said before, they are really lucky! take care ... gail reed Dagmar.. (comments) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I really liked this website...I surf the net for site like this, it is by far the most extensive and colorfull site I have seen so far..the info I found here is invaluble. I helps me to make up my mind whether to take the risk and sign up for college.. Thank U