Talk:Darkness in El Dorado

This whole article manages to completely avoid even a hint at what terrible crimes the anthropologists were accused of - did they kill and eat the natives, violate the Prime Directive, sell uranium buttons, what?? Stan 18:53, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

They did not, not at all, Stan, although Chagnon joined forces with strongly rejected Venezuelan political figures. It seems that he was aware of how corrupt this guys were, and that's what make his behavior unethical, not his research. The books is terribly flawed; besides the manipulation and forging of dubious information by Tierney, more troubling and obscure is Tierney's relationship with the New Tribes Mission and his quite homophobic remarks about certain anthropologists and Yanomami. BTW, what are you calling "Prime Directive"? Isn't that from Star Trek? Tierney accused (justly) some filmmakers (not Chagnon) of doing something that is preached by Star Trek's Prime Directive: not intervening. Quite contrary to the TV show, any socially conscious research would consider following Star Trek's Prime Directive as quite unethical and criminal, actually! From Venezuela, dalegrett 15:21, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Having just read the book I am puzzled by the comments regarding Tierney's supposedly "homophobic" remarks. He is rightfully critcial of Lizot's trading of goods for sex. There is nothing homophobic about that at all.

There is very little in the article about the substance of Tierney's arguments or the controversy that followed its publication. Moreover, dwelling on the allusions in the title (to El Dorado and Joseph Conrad) hardly seem relevant. Mere fluff that fills out the article without really saying anything about topic. --picaraza 05:28, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm new to wikipedia, so I don't know how we'd go about this, but is there any way to unlink Terry Turner's name in this article from the TV producer of the same name?

Alice Dreger friends with Chagnon
Mt144216 points out that Dregeris a personal friend of Chagnon. I don't dispute that they are friends, but think we should strive towards a more even handed contextualization of this issue. From Dreger's piece: "I did not know any of the major players in this history when I began researching it, but as is probably clear in this paper, what I found made me progressively outraged, and also sympathetic to Chagnon, Neel, and their families. The Chagnon and Neel families have been effusive in their thanks to me, and I believe at this point Chagnon considers me a friend, and I would call him my friend, although we hardly agree on everything." I don't feel that Mt144216 does a good job of encompassing these facts---and what sounds more like a professional than personal friendship to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pengortm (talk • contribs) 13:29, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

A more general point
Why must I come here for information on this controversy and find more "facts" (unsourced and unattributed) in the discussion page than in the main body of the argument?

This article says essentially that Chagnon was exonerated of "the most serious charges" by one inquiry, but does not list those charges or deal with the factual issues in the debate.

And I am pretty sure that U. Mich was not the only body looking into this.

I say that this is a prime candidate for an WP:NPOV debate.

Because it it not enough to state a handful of true, or generally true, or true in some sense or another, or truthy, factoids to support general conclusion about the outcome of the debate.

That is nothing more than confirmation bias.

It must be shown that OTHER FACTS IN EVIDENCE have NOT BEEN OMMITTED and that a representative sample of all relevant viewpoints have been taken into account.

And just who wrote this article anyway?

I think Wikipedia's policy of allowing anonymous authorship as the rule rather than the exception is a fundamental travesty.

-- CBrayton]

This is an article with an NPOV problem
I don't know the process for the initiating this (I dug for a bit and it confused me) but you can see the article lacks a neutral point of view. I came here to find out what the book's arguments are and they simply aren't here--instead, it's replaced with what is a cherry-picked set of "rebutted" points. I thought I was missing something and several other people on the discussion page seem to have the same problem. I came to this article after the controversy at the American Anthropological Association and it's clear there's been some lopsided edits. I can't edit the article myself since I haven't read the book and if someone who has could provide encyclopdedic information about the book--without editorializing--I would be ecstatic. But this definitely needs to be picked out for a WP:NPOV problem. 216.15.36.38 (talk) 03:58, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Chagnon
The article was missing what made the book so shocking; it was not the sexual allegations per se. It's who Chagnon is. He's the one who put the tribe on the anthropological map, making them famous. Making them possibly better protected than other, less celebrated Amazonian tribes.

So Chagnon is simultaneously their critic and their saviour, their defender.

So in that sense he's the last person you are expecting such allegations to concern. And he's accused of tampering with the Prime Directive for field work, to observe/study/comprehend/report, not to change or fuck up.

I have quickly added a sentence, but that should be done much better.

Varlaam (talk) 18:18, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The idea that Chagnon is "their saviour" is not a very common viewpoints from most anthropologists who consider him their main enemy who has provided distorted descriptions depictuing them as primitive savages and in that way actually motivating colonists to treat them violently. This view has been espused by Survival INternational, and by such prominent anthropologists as Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Marshall Sahlins and Elizabeth Povinelli - and this view of Chagnon as an enemy of the Yanomami does not rest on Tierneys accusations and indeed existed prior to the publication of his book.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:12, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Hoax categorization
The term "hoax" seems somewhat stronger than what critics appear to be saying. Is it fairer to assign it to Category:Controversies? Varlaam (talk) 07:41, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Having reviewed a lot of literature on this, I'm not sure. The primary allegations are clearly bogus, but hoax usually implies a deliberate manipulation which, without being inside Tierney's head is a bit difficult to say Pengortm (talk) 00:18, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
 * It is not a hoax, that implies that it was made with intent to deceive, I think most people consider the claims simply to be wildly exaggerated speculation.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:52, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Sourcing
I think this page should be making more use of secondary sources such as Borofsky 2005. 86.130.63.47 (talk) 23:50, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, that would be a very good idea.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:53, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, might be a good idea. Please either workshop suggested edits here or if you're confident in your contributions, go ahead and add them in directly and we'll work together collaboratively to improve as needed. A word of caution about Borofsky is that from my skims of it, it spends a lot of time letting individual actors in the controversy debate back and forth and thus might be a mixture of primary and secondary sources in the book. We will probably want to focus mainly on the more synthetic secondary source parts of the book for our purposes. --Pengortm (talk) 00:22, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Two templates just added
Were added via a request on OTRS. I have no personal connection to those templates. Just doing it as a courtesy. SarahStierch (talk) 18:45, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Where can we find more details on the templates/requests? nothing seems to be coming up when I try searching WP:OTRS/N. Thanks. --Pengortm (talk) 00:29, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Medical Team of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro report
I am reverting back to the previous version of this since the passages selected are cherry-picked, confusing and inconsistent with conclusions of report. To avoid edit warring, please bring the discussion here if you disagree. --Pengortm (talk) 15:35, 7 March 2015 (UTC)


 * hi, the quote is an explanation of historical changes in what is considered ethically appropriate in scientific and anthropological research. its really about changing attitudes to eugenics - eugenics was a common part of american genetics and other scientific thought pre world war two. so as they quote says - it wasn't considered unethical at the time, although their attitudes and protocols about ethics are different now. since the debate is largely about whether Neel intentionally carried our comparisons between immunised and non-immunised people, this quote seems quite crucial. however, if you would like to find a part of the source that says that Tiernay's claims were all false, perhaps you could point to this section or find a quote? Otherwise the source doesn't seem to support the claim.110.174.188.87 (talk) 12:37, 8 March 2015 (UTC)kt.
 * Thanks for engaging with the discussion here. The main passage I think that is relevant to this discussion is:
 * "The principle hypothesis of chapter 5 in Patrick Tierney's book—that a measles epidemic was provoked by vaccinations as part of a eugenics experiment—are easily refuted, his arguments having little solidity and being highly inconsistent."
 * Since this article is about the claims of the book, this seems like the most pertinent point to me. Your edits seem like tangential points not directly related to the claims of the book and which seem to obscure the evaluation of them. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding though. I'd be happy to discuss further here.--Pengortm (talk) 02:34, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

The line "The accusations of inappropriate medical practices contained in Tierney's book were investigated by the Medical Team of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and found to be false." is misleading. In the report's conclusions, not all of the book's arguments in respect to accusations of inappropriate medical practices were found to be false. For example, regarding the administration of the Edmonston B vaccine without immunoglobulin, the report says (page 17, §3):
 * "clinically the use of associated immunoglobulin would be more indicated, considering the well-being of a population, such as the Yanomami, that was isolated and susceptible to the most intense side effects. The true reasons for which Neel opted not to use immunoglobulin (...) are not clear from the available documentation, although the intention of experimentation is plausible."

Further, and perhaps more importantly, the report added, in regards to claims made in Chapter 5 (page 19, §3):
 * "a research proposal presented in 1971 by Neel to Dow Chemical for testing a triple vaccine on the Yanomami (...) indirectly shows that the scientist's research proposal for the 1968 vaccination was probably to evaluate the efficacy of the vaccine, to verify the vaccine reactions, to compare the frequency of these reactions and the immunological responses to the vaccine with urban populations"

In addition, on page 10 section B.3, the authors note there is no good reason as for why some Indians were not vaccinated; on page 11, concerning informed consent of the tribes, it hints at unethical scientific practices, such as not receiving authorization from the countries' respective authorities to trade gifts with then-largely isolated indigenous peoples in exchange for their blood. Overall, I would agree with others in this discussion who have felt the article, at present, seems primarily focused in discrediting the book instead of summarising its arguments, showing the main criticism of them, and allowing readers to make an evalution of their own. -- PaterPaterPater — Preceding undated comment added 03:09, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Neutrality and un-encyclopedic tone notice removal?
The article is tagged for problems of neutrality and encyclopedic tone. I don't see any clear justification for this and think these tags should be removed. While the article could certainly be improved in a variety of ways, I don't see a big neutrality or tone problem. I'll wait awhile for discussion here before removing unilaterally. --Pengortm (talk) 00:18, 8 March 2015 (UTC


 * Well, I disagree with your assessment, and with your revert of my recent edit. It is fundamentally against Wikipedia's approach to call something discredited as such. If author X says the book is discredited, using that term, we can report that, with a reference. Charles Matthews (talk) 18:55, 3 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks for bringing this up for discussion here. I took the 'discredited' terminology as a reasonable summary of the rest of the article (e.g. "later investigations by multiple independent organizations found Tierney's main allegations to be false and libelous"). There seems to be enough consensus in the literature that it seems look a good and accurate summary. I hope others can chime in and/or perhaps we can find a way to hash this out.Pengortm (talk) 21:58, 3 September 2015 (UTC)


 * My concern is well expressed by the first sentence at WP:SYNTH: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." I completely agree with the equation "discredited = reasonable summary". Most readers would too, I guess. But as far as I can see putting that conclusion in the lead is against the exclusion of original research. The second para of the lead is as far as we should go, in my view. Charles Matthews (talk) 10:39, 4 September 2015 (UTC)


 * This seems like a misreading of WP:NOR to me. Particularly that same article states: "Research that consists of collecting and organizing material from existing sources within the provisions of this and other content policies is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia. Best practice is to research the most reliable sources on the topic and summarize what they say in your own words..". So the fact that this seems like a reasonable summary to you and I and my reading of Wiki standards is that summarizing is a key aspect of wikipedia makes me think this should stay. As always, I hope you or others will chime in if I am misreading things. Pengortm (talk) 14:47, 4 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Collation differs from drawing inferences. If any synthesis at all is accepted, of any character, sure. But it isn't; and to me your version fairly clearly crosses the line. So, having discussed it, I'm going to revert to my version. Charles Matthews (talk) 17:46, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Third Opinion
A third opinion was requested. Is the question whether to use the word "discredited" versus the word "polemical" in the lede in the voice of Wikipedia? If so, I say that "polemical" is the better word so as to be more encyclopedic. The word "discredited" may reasonably be used in a quote, if someone says that scholars have discredited the book (which they have). Robert McClenon (talk) 20:51, 7 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks for that: that is the issue as I see it. I have also asked at User talk:Sitush, but given the note on his user page, he may not respond quickly. Charles Matthews (talk) 15:25, 13 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't include either "polemical" or "discredited" in the opening sentence. Neither are required as the lead goes on to explain the issues. It is reasonable for us to allow the reader to apply their own assessment based on the information provided. - Sitush (talk) 17:06, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

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Lizot and Good allegations major?
I just added a passage about Lizot and Good to the lede of the article. I did this since these are listed as major claims later on in the article. Are these actually major claims of the book? If so, I think things as is are fine. If not, we should probably remove from both the lede and major claims sections. I am leaning towards thinking these are not really major claims of the book, but hope others can weigh in before we delete. -Pengortm (talk) 15:14, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

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