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Toward a Biocultural Medical Anthropology
Author(s) -
Landy David
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
medical anthropology quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.855
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1548-1387
pISSN - 0745-5194
DOI - 10.1525/maq.1990.4.3.02a00090
Subject(s) - realm , cybernetics , cultural anthropology , epistemology , sociology , anthropology , cognitive science , ecology , social science , psychology , philosophy , biology , history , archaeology
To study cultures as ideational systems without mapping the complex cybernetic circuits that link them to social systems, to ecosystems, and to the psychology and biology of individuals would turn cultural analysis into an arcane pursuit isolated from surrounding disciplines at a stage when a fantastic burst of scientific knowledge—with human survival as the stakes—is being launched: a burst that should relegate to the realm of Ptolemaic astronomy (or at least preWatson‐Crick genetics) previous theories in ecology, the neurosciences, psychology, and related fields.