The Anthropology of Everyday Life

Do Big Brains Make Us Smart?

The Answer is No     Humans have the largest brain-to-body ratio of any animal. We have giant, complicated, brains that should make us the smartest animals on  Earth. But oddly, we spend so much of our time trying to dull that intelligence—we drink alcohol, take drugs, go shopping, have sex, watch TV, look at our phones for hours, read, talk to each other a lot, and spend most of the day with useless thoughts wandering through all those brain cells.   In other words, we have big brains but can’t handle…

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Everything on Earth

How Natural History Museums Around the World Are Dusting Off Their Vast Collections to Answer the Most Critical Questions of Our Time   The group of third graders being led through the Hall of Biodiversity at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City have no idea. The couple from California admiring the stuffed African elephant standing proudly in the rotunda of the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington D.C. is clueless. The group of older visitors taking the “Nature Walk” to view various recreated animal habitats at the Chicago…

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10 Reasons Why It’s Better to Teach at Abbott Elementary than Cornell University

I’ve Watched One and Done the Other, so I Know     Not all teaching is the same. I know this because I went to school from kindergarten through five years of graduate school and experienced all kinds of teachers along the way. Also, for over 30 years I taught anthropology at Cornell University, day after day, month after month, year after year, decade after decade, everything from giant classes of 120 students to small seminars with four or five students. In addition, I am the parent of a daughter who went…

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Littering — A Main Occupation of Our Species

Why Do Humans Simply Drop Everything They Don’t Want Anymore?     Every two weeks I don a pair of plastic surgical gloves, grab some sort of receptacle such as a grocery bag, cardboard box, or a large used manila envelope and go outside to clean up my street. I live on a very narrow brick alley in downtown Philadelphia. Cars can get down the street, but they rarely do because it looks impossible to those who don’t live here. In other words, this tiny street is not a main thoroughfare, not…

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