{"id":2574,"date":"2011-10-28T14:09:54","date_gmt":"2011-10-28T18:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=2574"},"modified":"2011-10-28T14:09:54","modified_gmt":"2011-10-28T18:09:54","slug":"feedback-loop-anthropology-101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2011\/10\/28\/feedback-loop-anthropology-101\/","title":{"rendered":"Feedback Loop: Anthropology 101"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2249\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 234px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"A cat statue found on Key Marco in Southwest Florida.\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2011\/10\/KeyMarcoCat.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2249\" title=\"KeyMarcoCat\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2011\/10\/KeyMarcoCat-300x383.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"234\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2011\/10\/KeyMarcoCat-300x383.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2011\/10\/KeyMarcoCat-220x281.jpg 220w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2011\/10\/KeyMarcoCat.jpg 391w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 234px) 100vw, 234px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Google Image Search \/ Public.resources.org<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A cat statue found on Key Marco in Southwest Florida.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Our <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2011\/10\/20\/explaining-florida-gov-scott-war-on-anthropology-why-anthropologists-win\/\">story last week<\/a> looking at Bureau of Labor Statistics data in the wake of Gov. Rick Scott&#8217;s criticism of anthropology majors generated more conversation than anything else we&#8217;ve done at StateImpact Florida.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2011\/10\/20\/explaining-florida-gov-scott-war-on-anthropology-why-anthropologists-win\/#comments\">Anthromajor<\/a>, expressing the majority opinion, said the skills learned are not the domain of tweedy eggheads and translate to business:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I am an Executive Managing Director, Senior VP with a large real estate company in a major US city.\u00a0 I possess a bachelor of science in Anthropology.\u00a0 It was my education and training that helped me land a job in real estate years ago.\u00a0 My employer noticed that my background could be helpful a multi-cultural environment.\u00a0 Not only did my education help me attain an understanding of diverse cultures, the intense math and science courses prepared me to manage multi-million-dollar assets.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2011\/10\/20\/explaining-florida-gov-scott-war-on-anthropology-why-anthropologists-win\/#comments\"><!--more-->Noneofyourbusiness<\/a> argued while growth in anthropology jobs was equal to other fields, science fields were producing many more jobs. Majors such as anthropology are subsidized by taxpayers.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Anthropology is objectively a drain on our society&#8217;s resources. \u00a0If you want to study something fine, but don&#8217;t ask others to pay for it. \u00a0FYI: people with degrees in STEM majors are also well rounded. Don&#8217;t alienate others with your condescending comments. \u00a0Your field of study IS generally useless. \u00a0Just try to blend in and stay under the radar of everyone else actually supporting society.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"related-content alignleft\"><h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4><div class=\"links\"><h5>Posts<\/h5><ul><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2011\/10\/27\/from-the-comments-not-all-opinions-on-anthropology-are-equal\/\">From the Comments: Not All Opinions on Anthropology Are\u00a0Equal<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2011\/10\/24\/gov-scott-not-apologizing-to-anthropologists\/\">Gov. Scott Not Apologizing to Anthropologists<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2011\/10\/20\/explaining-florida-gov-scott-war-on-anthropology-why-anthropologists-win\/\">Explaining Florida Gov. Rick Scott\u2019s War On Anthropology (And Why Anthropologists May\u00a0Win)<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"topics\"><h5>Topics<\/h5><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2011\/10\/scott-2-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/topic\/anthropology\/\">What Triggered Governor Scott\u2019s War On Anthropology?<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<p>Anthropology grad <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2011\/10\/20\/explaining-florida-gov-scott-war-on-anthropology-why-anthropologists-win\/#comments\">Hanna<\/a>, now working in the &#8220;real world,&#8221; wrote that anthropology and other fields reconsidering their mission would be healthy.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The reality of those faculties is that they waste enormous intellectual energies, students&#8217; tuition and public dollars producing scholarship the sole intent of which is most often to impress other aloof anthropologists&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>To realign our allocation of scarce resources for greater social value than anthropology departments provide would be good public policy. \u00a0It would ultimately be good for anthropology too. \u00a0Such a shift would send an informative signal to students wondering about the real-world usefulness of different fields of study. \u00a0It would save many young people from illusions that self-righteous hypocritical social criticism is a marketable skill.\u00a0\u00a0And it would encourage anthropology department faculties themselves to undertake reflection about their own roles in university education and knowledge-generation for the 21st century.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Keep the comments and questions coming. Thanks for reading.<\/p>\n<p><em>Reader reaction is an important part of building <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/\">StateImpact Florida<\/a>\u2019s education coverage. <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida?s=feedback+loop\">Feedback Loop<\/a> will be a regular feature highlighting your questions, criticisms and comments.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our story last week looking at Bureau of Labor Statistics data in the wake of Gov. Rick Scott&#8217;s criticism of anthropology majors generated more conversation than anything else we&#8217;ve done at StateImpact Florida. Anthromajor, expressing the majority opinion, said the skills learned are not the domain of tweedy eggheads and translate to business: I am [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[154,1065,1027,1082],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2574"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2578,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2574\/revisions\/2578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}