Lionel Tiger

Lionel Tiger (born February 5, 1937) is a Canadian-American anthropologist. He is the Charles Darwin Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University and co-research director of the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.

Early life and education Born in 1937 in Montreal, Quebec, he is a graduate of McGill University, and the London School of Economics at the University of London, England. He is also a consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense on the future of biotechnology. Tiger lives in New York City, and regularly contributes to mainstream media such as Psychology Today and The New York Times.

Career Tiger did not study biology or anthropology in college, only taking one class to fulfill graduation requirements. He developed an interest for anthropology while studying the decolonization of Africa. While in Ghana and Nigeria on a summer fellowship, he studied Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first postcolonial president. Tiger wanted to find out if Max Weber's theory of charismatic authority would be apply in the context. While researching, he was inspired by Weber's questions and new discoveries in Africa by Raymond Dart and Louis Leakey. Along with other studies that were being conducted at the time, including the discovery of DNA and that of research of primates in the wild, Tiger was inspired to do his own research on the human species, mainly that of human males and the way they interact with each other.

Controversy Tiger's advocacy for men's rights has led to him being called by Kirkus Reviews "the mad scientist of biological reductionism". His books make controversial claims, including that birth control for women has emasculated men and forever changed the family dynamic, Tiger has received death threats, bomb threats and threats of physical harm, and his book The Imperial Animal has been compared to Mein Kampf by Maureen Duffy.

Tiger has predicted the higher status of women within society, in books such as The Decline of Males and Men in Groups. He has also written books such as The Pursuit of Pleasure, which discussed the concept that evolution has established the biological mechanisms of pleasure and that they have survival origins.

Books

Tiger, Lionel; Shepher, Joseph (1975). Women in the Kibbutz. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. .

Tiger, Lionel (1987). The Manufacture of Evil: Ethics, Evolution and the Industrial System. Harper Collins. .

(Co-authored with psychiatrist neuroscientist Michael McGuire.)