Physical Anthropology and the Scientific Method

Science is a process of understanding phenomena through observation, generalization and verification. By this it means that there is an empirical approach to gaining information through the use of systematic and explicit techniques.

Because biological anthropologists are engaged in scientific pursuits, they adhere to the principles of the scientific method, whereby a research problem is identified and information is then gathered in order to solve it.

The gathering of information is referred to as data collection. And when scientists use rigorously controlled approach, they are able to describe precisely their techniques and results in a manner that facilitates comparisons with the work of others.

Once facts have been established, scientists try to explain them. First, a hypothesis, a provisional explanation of phenomenon, is developed.

But before hypothesis can be accepted, it must be tested by means of data collection and analysis. Indeed, the testing of hypotheses with the possibility of proving them false in the very basis of the scientific method.

Scientific testing of hypothesis may take several years and may involve researchers who were not involved with the original work. In subsequent studies, other investigators may attempts to obtain the original results, but that may no happen.

If a hypothesis cannot be falsified, it is accepted as a theory. There is a popular misconception that theories are nothing more than hunches or unfounded beliefs.

But in scientific terms, a theory is much more that mere speculation because it has been repeatedly tested and scientists have not been able to disprove it. As such theories not only help organize current knowledge, but also predict how new facts may fit into established pattern.

Use of the scientific method not only allows for the development and testing of hypotheses, but also permits various types of bias to be addressed and controlled. It is important to realize that bias occurs in all studies.

Sources of bias include how investigator was trained and by whom, what particular questions interest the researcher; what specific skills and talents he or she possesses; what earlier results have been established in this realm of study and by whom; and what sources of data are available and thus what samples can be collected.
Physical Anthropology and the Scientific Method

What is Physical Anthropology?

Today the four subfields of anthropology remain at the core of the discipline. Physical anthropology considers the human species as a biologically entity as well as social animal.

Some physical anthropologists are concern primarily with pre-human and early human species, or fossil hominids.

Others concentrate on the similarities and differences among the various primate species, which include not only humans but monkeys and apes as well. This area of study is called primatology.

A third area, known as the study of human variation, or anthropological genetics, deals with contemporary as well as historical variations among human populations.

It is concern with such topics as the adaptations of a group of people to a specific climate, the natural immunity of some peoples to certain disease, and the all important question of racial differences.

By studying human nature, the variety of peoples in the world today, and in the past and the relationship of the human species to other species, we are better able to understand why we behave the way we do.

The physical anthropologists give us valuable information about our physical structure. For example, it is important to know the effects of being able to walk erect on two feet rather than having to use our hands to steady ourselves.

By providing answers to the questions of what makes human being unique among animals, physical anthropology gives us the first clues to the meaning of human behavior and the limitations on it.

It tells us why we should expect others to behave within those limitations, and what variations are possible. In other words, physical anthropology spells out the limit of human behavior.

Perhaps most important, it teaches us that no matter how much diversity we might find in the world around us, the most remarkable fact is not how different people are but how similar they are, and this is a crucial lesson in getting along in the world today.
What is Physical Anthropology?

Anthropology in Nineteenth Century

It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that anthropology began to take shape as a separate field of study. It came together from many different directions, with roots in the natural sciences, the social sciences, and even humanistic disciplines like history and folklore. By end of the nineteenth century, anthropology had clearly narrowed its focus to four main areas:

1. Studies of physical aspects of the human species, including human biology and evolution.

2. Studies of language, mainly the diversity of the world’s spoken and written languages

3. Archaeologists studies of past civilizations

4. Studies of the cultural similarities and differences among existing societies, particularly those of non western world.

These four fields are still at the core of anthropology, and today every anthropologist is expected to be acquainted with them.

But it is interesting to look at the way these seemly diverse approaches were brought together as anthropology develop into a formal discipline and defined its boundaries its regards to other social sciences.

In the nineteenth century physical anthropology was perhaps most directly concerned with the concept of race, especially in the United States, where the tensions that led to Civil War fostered scientific investigating of racial differences.

The root of physical anthropology can be found in the natural sciences of that period, including biology, botany, and zoology.

These fields had a long tradition of recording all the diverse species of animals and plants discovered in different parts of the world and trying to figure out the relationship among them , as well as they had grown apart, and changed – other words, their evolution.
Anthropology in Nineteenth Century