Okay, like, I have never studied anthropology in a formal academic setting, so this is just mostly me talking out of my ass.

From what I understand, it seems like ya'll were really at odds with what you expected from the class, ie. to learn something about other cultures, as objectively as possible (I'm probably wrong here), but there seems to be more of a focus on the tools of understanding (which have definitely changed over time) in this class, which I still think is pretty cool.

Someone here a while back posted something about the Sensory Ethnography Lab at Harvard, and they have an interesting (although I don't know how original) take on the the studying part. This might be more in line with what you are you are in to, so you might wanna check it out.

This part:

states that bias in inherent to all research

definitely seems the most problematic for that field. Just by being an outsider, and observer, you inherently change the dynamic between the individuals you are studying and yourself. It's never going to be essentially the same as being an individual in that community. Then translating the experience through you own perception? Then writing that in another language that may not even have the proper symbolic tools? Then expecting people to really feel that sameness in a way that the original context remains intact? It gets bit hard to swallow. And you put yourself just a couple rungs up from some racist doofus marching through the Congo in the late 1800s, shooting anything that moves and spinning tales of your goings-on for the mystified masses back home.

It seems more like coming to odds with the fact that translation will be faulty, but you can absolutely identify with the western world's impact on others and the systems you understand working on those who are foreign to them. This includes methods of quantification as well, but the only thing I have to say to that is one time I read Foucault, and he does go on a bit about how the soft sciences can have a demonstrable impact on society. And, in the way that they were applied during colonial times, he makes a good point, but please don't ask me to defend him like I'm an acolyte.

accept and promote biases with politically/morally acceptable goals/orientations.

I don't know what that means, but it seems like it could get real hairy, real quick. I would like to know what that meant in the context of this class, but I'm assuming it generally rhymed with "brogressive".

To be politically correct, and not be paternalistic

...spend absolutely no time talking about the future of these people.

There seems to be a bit of cognitive dissonance here, though, in your thinking. I can imagine someone would reply to that, saying, "Well, future thinking and planning is very nation-state and capitalist-centric, and we can study the effects of these systems on indigenous peoples, but we are just observers on our best days." There have also been plenty of cases for why it is best to not stick our nose in the affairs of others' as well-intentioned as our noses may be.

About what they actually want, the changes that the average person in these society wants, and believes are possible.

Again, in someone else's voice: "Those are their choices to make, we tend to corrupt anything we touch, and we just need to understand our own impact."

Like I said, though, this isn't my field so I may even be siding with you more than I even know. That was a very honest response to your professor, though, I hope they aren't the vindictive type.