C. R. Hallpike
Personal Information
Description
Christopher Hallpike is an English-Canadian anthropologist and an Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at McMaster University, Ontario, Canada. He is known for his extensive study of the Konso of Ethiopia and the Tauade of New Guinea. Hallpike has researched and published on a wide range of subjects, including Ethiopia and Papua New Guinea; stateless societies; tribal warfare; systems of seniority based on age; the symbolism of hair style; sociocultural evolution; cultural materialism; Piaget, developmental psychology and primitive thought; the evolution of morality; the relevance of Darwinism and sociobiology in anthropology (especially the weaknesses of adaptationism); and the history of science. Hallpike is critical of "journalists, science writers, historians, linguists, biologists, and especially evolutionary psychologists" who write about primitive societies with ignorance or even ideologically driven falsifications espousing theories that are "nonsense". His writing style is to give his readers a "warts and all" perspective of his observations, combined with wit and humour. Published Two satirical novels under the pen name of “Owen Stanley" The Missionaries (Castalia House. 2016) The Promethean (Castalia House. 2017)
Books
Ship of fools
Dr. Hallpike spent his first ten years as an anthropologist living with mountain tribes in Ethiopia and Papua New Guinea and writing up his research for publication. He learned that primitive societies are very different from our modern industrialised societies and that it takes a considerable amount study to understand how they work. But since all Man's ancestors used to live in a similar manner, understanding these societies is essential to understanding the human race itself, especially when speculating about our prehistoric ancestors in East Africa. Unfortunately a wide variety of journalists and science writers, historians, linguists, biologists, and especially evolutionary psychologists erroneously believe they are qualified to write about primitive societies without knowing much about them. The result is that many of their superficial speculations have about as much scientific credibility as The Flintstones. The various critical studies contained in Ship of Fools: An Anthology of Learned Nonsense about Primitive Society examine some of the most popular of these speculations and evaluate their scientific merit. Among the learned fools whose works are critiqued are: Yuval Harari's Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Emma Byrne's Swearing is Good For You René Girard's theory of learned behavior William Arens's The Man-Eating Myth Noam Chomsky's theory of universal grammar