Melvin Konner
Encyclopedia
Melvin Konner, MD
Doctor of Medicine
Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...

, PhD
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

, is the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Anthropology and Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at Emory University
Emory University
Emory University is a private research university in metropolitan Atlanta, located in the Druid Hills section of unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The university was founded as Emory College in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia by a small group of Methodists and was named in honor of...

. He studied at Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...

 , CUNY (1966), where he met Marjorie Shostak
Marjorie Shostak
Marjorie Shostak was an American anthropologist. Though she never received a formal degree in anthropology, she conducted extensive fieldwork among the !Kung San people of the Kalahari desert in south-western Africa and was widely known for her descriptions of the lives of women in this...

, whom he later married and with whom he had three children. He earned his PhD in biological anthropology
Biological anthropology
Biological anthropology is that branch of anthropology that studies the physical development of the human species. It plays an important part in paleoanthropology and in forensic anthropology...

 from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 in 1973. He spent two years doing fieldwork among the Kalahari San or Bushmen
Bushmen
The indigenous people of Southern Africa, whose territory spans most areas of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, and Angola, are variously referred to as Bushmen, San, Sho, Barwa, Kung, or Khwe...

, studying infant development and the hormonal mechanism of lactational infertility. After six years on the Harvard faculty, he returned to school and received his MD from Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts....

 in 1985. He then moved to Emory as department chair.

From 1985 on, he contributed substantially in developing the concept of a Paleolithic diet
Paleolithic diet
The modern dietary regimen known as the Paleolithic diet , also popularly referred to as the caveman diet, Stone Age diet and hunter-gatherer diet, is a nutritional plan based on the presumed ancient diet of wild plants and animals that various hominid species habitually consumed during the...

 and its impact on health, publishing along with Stanley Boyd Eaton, and later also with his wife Marjorie Shostak
Marjorie Shostak
Marjorie Shostak was an American anthropologist. Though she never received a formal degree in anthropology, she conducted extensive fieldwork among the !Kung San people of the Kalahari desert in south-western Africa and was widely known for her descriptions of the lives of women in this...

 and with Loren Cordain
Loren Cordain
Loren Cordain is an American scientist who specializes in fields of nutrition and exercise physiology. He is notable as an advocate of the paleolithic diet and a researcher into paleolithic nutrition; he wrote numerous peer-reviewed articles on the subject, as well as several popular books, most...

.

He has held grants from the National Institute of Mental Health
National Institute of Mental Health
The National Institute of Mental Health is one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health...

 and National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...

, and has been a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council, and the Foundations Fund for Research in Psychiatry.

Raised in an Orthodox Jewish family, Konner has stated that he lost his faith at age 17. His views on religion, however, are complex, as he has also discussed the function of counseling by chaplains in the hospital where he worked, saying that while as a scientist he did not endorse their views, as an anthropologist he recognized the value of their services.

Konner aroused some controversy in 2006 when he wrote an article contesting the claims in former US President Jimmy Carter's book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Carter responded quoting from his December 15 press release entitled "Letter to the Jewish Citizens of America". In a lengthy follow-up letter, Konner disputed Carter's claims and called the book and its title inflammatory.

He attended and was a speaker at the Beyond Belief
Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival
Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival, the first of The Science Network's annual Beyond Belief symposia, held from November 5 to November 7, 2006, was described by the New York Times, as "a free-for-all on science and religion," which seemed at times like "the founding convention...

symposium on November 2006.

Selected bibliography

  • Konner, Melvin J. (2010) The Evolution of Childhood. Cambridge, MA : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
  • Konner, Melvin J. (2009) The Jewish Body. Knopf.
  • Konner, Melvin J. (2003) Unsettled: an anthropology of the Jews. New York : Viking Compass.
  • Konner, Melvin J. (2002) The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit, 2nd ed. (original 1982) New York: Times Books.
  • Konner, Melvin J. (1999) "Darwin's truth, Jefferson's vision: Sociobiology and the politics of human nature." American Prospect 45:30-38.
  • Konner, Melvin J. (1993) Medicine at the Crossroads: The Crisis in Healthcare. Pantheon Books.
  • Konner, Melvin. (1990) Why the Reckless Survive . . . and Other Secrets of Human Nature. New York: Viking. ISBN 0670829366
  • Konner, Melvin J. (1987) Becoming a Doctor: A Journey of Initiation in Medical School. New York: Viking.
  • Konner, Melvin J. and C. Worthman. (1980) Nursing frequency, gonadal function and birth spacing among !Kung Hunter-Gathers. Science.

External links

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