Anthropology: Subfields, Concepts, and Evolutionary Theory
Classified in Psychology and Sociology
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The Four Subfields of Anthropology
The four subfields of anthropology - and how applied anthropology fits in:
1) Biological anthropology2) Cultural anthropology3) Linguistic anthropology4) Archaeology- Applied anthropology draws on information provided by the other four specialties.
Anthropology: Holistic and Comparative
Athropology as Holistic and Comparitive
Holistic: Anthropologists integrate all that is known about humans and their activities.
Comparative: Anthropologists examine similarities and differences between human societies.
Labwork vs Fieldwork
Labwork vs Fieldwork
- Labwork involves spending time in a lab testing and analyzing,- Fieldwork typically involves an extended stay with a local community
The Concept of Culture
Culture Concept
- Culture consists of beliefs, traditions, customs, and ideas that humans learn as members of society- Humans adapt to and transform the world around them using culture.
Key Scientific Concepts in Anthropology
key scientific concepts and processes as they apply in anthropology:
- Assumptions are basic, unquestioned understandings about the way the world works- Evidence is what is seen when a particular part of the world is examined with great care.1) Material evidence consists of things and material objects.2) Inferred evidence is material evidence and interpretation.- Hypotheses are statements that assert a particular connection between fact and interpretation.- Testability is the ability of scientific hypotheses to be matched against nature to see whether they are confirmed or refuted.- Theorizing about the world is a form of story telling.- Theory is a term used by scientists in a way different from colloquial usage.- Anthropologists and other scientists work to maintain their Objectivity, which is the separation of observation and reporting from the researcher’s wishes.
Evolutionary Theory
○What is evolutionary theory? Illustrate through examples
- Living species reflect changes over time and space
- Existing organisms can give rise to new kinds of species
- All species ultimately share a common ancestry
- Material evidence for the aforementioned points
Pre-Darwinian Views of the Natural World
Key features of the pre-Darwinian views of the natural world:
- Essentialism (Plato)
- Great Chain of Being (Aristotle)
- Catastrophism (Cuvier)
- Uniformitarianism (Lyell)
- Transformational Evolution (Lamarckian evolution)
Lamarck vs Darwin
Lamarck vs Darwin
- Both agreed that living things change to be better suited and adapted to their environments, and that all organisms are related having evolved from fewer, simpler organisms to many, more complex organisms.
- Lamarck believed that organisms choose to change based on what they want or need, and those changes are passed on to their offspring.
- Darwin believed that organisms are born with natural variations, and if these variations are useful to survival then it is more likely that they would successfully have offspring and pass on these traits.
Natural selection: individual change and population selection
- This is basically the second half of Darwin’s theory
Adaptation vs. Exaptation
Adaption vs. Exaptation.
- Adaptation
Process by which organisms cope with environmental stresses.
- Exaptation
A trait can evolve because it served one particular function, but subsequently it may come to serve another.
Genotype vs. Phenotype
Genotype vs. Phenotype
- Genotype = The set of genes that an organism carries.
- Phenotype = All of an organism’s observable characteristics- which are influenced both by its genotype and by the environment.
Anthropomorphism = Attribution of human characteristics or behavior to a god, animal, or object.
Primate Taxonomies: Clades vs. Grade
Primate taxonomies: clades vs. grade
Clades =A group of organisms believed to have evolved from a common ancestor, according to the principles of cladistics.
Grades= A group of organisms united by a level of morphological or physiological complexity.
Macroevolution: Phyletic Gradualism or Punctuated Equilibrium?
Macroevolution: phyletic gradualism or punctuated equilibrium?
- Phyletic gradualism: Most speciation is slow and uniform, usually the transformation between a species and a new species is one whole steady process.
- Punctuated equilibrium: Evolution is marked by isolated episodes of rapid speciation between long periods of time with little or no change
Speciation and Species Selection
Speciation
- The slow, gradual transformation of a species over time (anagenesis)
- Process in which natural selection is seen to operate among variant, related species within a single genus, family, or order.