Describe what biological anthropology entails. What is the main concept studied and why? Biological anthropology is also called physical anthropology. In your opinion, why did the name change from physical to biological?
Humankind and all its forms constitute the main subject of anthropology studies. However, unlike all the other studies of humankind, such as sociology, psychology, and history, anthropology also entails the “inner workings of a group of people who hold different worldviews, values, and traditions” (Stanford, Allen, & Anton, 2008, p. 3). Several of the main concepts which anthropology operates with are evolution, hominid, biological anthropology, linguistic anthropology, biocultural anthropology, culture, language, etc. All these concepts are essential for anthropology and studying them helps to discover new facts about humankind and understand them better. Biological anthropology is mostly referred to as physical anthropology because the data it operates with (such as fossils, for instance) are physical.
How did Jean Baptiste Lamarck’s view of evolution differ from Charles Darwin’s view of evolution? What are the main parts of each?
Views on evolution are numerous with Charles Darwin’s and Jean Baptiste Lamarck’s being the opposite ones. Lamarck’s views on evolution “emphasized the inheritance of features acquired during an organism’s lifetime” (Beard, 2006, p. 33). Unlike Darwin who claimed that the organisms have survived due to the process of natural selection (when only the strongest and resistant to the environmental changes organisms can survive), Lamarck affirmed that living organisms developed from simple to complex forms, and during this process, they changed from one species into the other, as well as they altered their behaviors under the impact of the environment. Moreover, unlike Darwin who posited that natural selection takes place due to random variations, Lamarck stated that living organisms constantly develop and strive for perfection with their species being formed by the environment.
Name and discuss two people who preceded Darwin and helped his ideas of evolution. What did each one do? How does each idea fit in with Darwin’s idea?
Darwin’s theory of evolution was largely influenced by the ideas of James Hutton and Charles Lyell. These two people are regarded as the founders of uniformitarianism geology (Stanford, Allen, & Anton, 2008). The geological findings of Hutton and Lyell refuted creationist ideas about the Earth’s formation. At this, they have never denied divine intervention into the Earth’s creation. This resulted in advocating the theory known as catastrophism “in which cataclysmic disasters were believed to have wiped out earlier forms of life on Earth” (Stanford, Allen, & Anton, 2008, p. 18). This had a primary influence on Darwin’s ideas about the emergence of living organisms because it shifted the view on the Earth’s creation from the biblical one to a humanistic and evolutionary one.
Discuss the subfield of linguistics. How do you think it fits in with biological anthropology and human evolution?
Within one of its subfields, namely, the linguistic one, anthropology studies functions, forms, and social context of language (Stanford, Allen, & Anton, 2008). The subfield of linguistic anthropology is often considered a subfield within cultural anthropology, though its relation to biological anthropology and human evolution also cannot be denied. Linguistics may fit in with biological anthropology and human evolution because the language has accompanied humans throughout their development over multiple generations, which means that it should be studied together with evolutionary concepts.
Reference List
Beard, C. (2006). The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey: Unearthing the Origins of Monkeys, Apes, and Humans. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Stanford, C., Allen, J.S., & Anton, S.C. (2008). Exploring Biological Anthropology: The Essentials, Second Edition. New York: Prentice Hall.