Marvin Harris, 74, Is Dead ‘Dr. Harris, called “one of the most controversial anthropologists alive” by Smithsonian magazine in 1986, believed that human social life was shaped in response to the practical problems of human existence [“cultural maerialism”, he called it. -FmH]. He argued essentially that cultural differences did not matter much, a novel approach in a discipline dedicated to studying cultural differences.’ NY Times [“FMHreader”, “FMHreader”]