Morgan and Tyler

Self-proclaimed Darwinist Lewis Morgan contended during the period of colonisation that there were three periods of civilisation; the Savage, Barbaric and the Civilised, the savage was characterised by simply existence and living off the land whereas the civilised used phonic alphabet systems, ownership of property and some sort of established state system (Morgan, 1877).

Edward Burnett Tylor was born in 1832 and passed away in the year 1917. He was the founder of modern academic discipline of anthropology. Tylor belonged to a generation of academics and was raised in a religious family. He was a well-educated individual who began his own career in fieldwork in Mexico and ended up receiving and honorary doctorate from Oxford University where he was the keeper of the Museum. He eventually became the first Professor of Anthropology in Britain and later retired in 1909. Tylor had made different opinions on religion. He defined culture as a complex whole that consists of many attributes. Tylor also came up with an evolutionary view. This view was concerning culture and development and the fact that animism was

In the film “The Gods Must Be Crazy” by Jamie Uys, there is a contrast between the primitive and the civilized society. The civilized society has come a long way since its primitive days. Its hard to imagine that there are still people in this world that live without the advantages and developments of a civilized society. Those living in a civilized society would must likely believe that their society is better than that of a primitive society, but like wise a primitive society would think their society is better. In this essay, a comparison will be made between the different traits that make up these two different societies.

Morgan works focused on evolutionist thinking, “Morgan ventured to classify the entire spectrum of human experience into seven different subdivisions.” (Jacobson 146) These subdivisions are categorized by savagery, barbarism and civilization. Savagery involves simple knowledge and findings, Barbarism starts the building of small culture with more complex inventions, and finally civilization is reached where literacy can be found. Another topic to be considered is the subdivision of human development called Genes.

Morgan Geyser, 12, and Anissa Weier, 13 two Wisconsin girls are accused for intentionally trying to kill classmate Payton Leutner so a fictional online character called Slender Man would not harm them, or their families.

Montaigne suggests that barbarians are the ones who remain a primitive state of mind and possess inborn good natures,

To illustrate, the theory of evolution by natural selection is the process by which organisms change over time as a result of changes in heritable physical or behavioral traits. Darwin was the first to formulate the theory and alludes to the fact that given enough time and enough accumulated changes, natural selection can create an

Evolution is the change in the inherited characteristic of biological populations over successive generations (Wikipedia). The most notable theory of evolution was Charles Darwin’s speculation about natural selection. Natural selection is the process by which nature rewards those individuals better adapted to their environments with survival and reproductive success, defined by Ker Than, a Senior Editor in TechNewsDaily on livescience.com. Darwin published the first edition of “The Origin of Species” in 1859, in which Darwin theorized how a bear can turn in to a whale by natural selection. "I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale," Darwin speculated (Than).

The word evolution means the process of change over a period of time. For example: plants and animals evolve over time by their genetic system allowing them to adapt to different changes in the world. The theory of evolution states animals, insects, plants, humans, and etc are all from a one-celled ancestor. A bad example of evolution is having a bad diet, which does not pass on to your next generation.

The European mind at the fringes of "civilisation," when confronted with this Otherness, cannot settle on one or the other of these alternatives. "European reactions to other cultures tend to oscillate between these two poles, and thus the same culture can seem simple, authentic, concrete, or, on the other hand, odd, uncanny, and arbitrary" (ibid.). While this paradigm of shifting viewpoints is exemplified by Marlow in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, it seems to find its resolution in Sigmund Freud's assertion that in many ways the modern man is the primitive man.

Edward Tylor and Lewis Henry Morgan wanted to reconstruct the past stages of human development. Tylor believed that cultural correspondences of mankind weakened racial explanations of human behavior. Like Tylor, Morgan disregarded race explanations in explaining human development. Moreover, both scholars embraced the notion that human kind should be considered homogenous in nature, and specifically each human species are placed differently on a continuum that explain different human societies progression. Morgan and Tylor both felt that race did not explain cultural differences in societies. Essentially, Tyler and Morgan asserted that human history should be regarded as a process and entire societies reflect earlier stages of human evolution. Morgan furthered Tyler’s assertions by coining three specific stages on the progressive human continuum. These stages included: Savagery, Barbarism, and Civilization, and each stage is further divided into sub periods which include: Upper, Middle, and Later.

Darwinism is a theory of evolution developed by Charles Darwin also called Darwinian Theory. Darwin utilizes Thomas Malthus’ principle of exponential population growth to debate the possibility of infinite growth of population sizes which is tested by the limitations of geography and natural resources that makes it impossible for an infinite number of beings to survive. The limitation in resources results in species experience a “struggle for existence,” creating a survival competition. In this theory, Darwin stated that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual 's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce. Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859 which argued that species evolved to get better all the time. Some people used his theory to argue that members of the elite or height of the social ladder were superior to the working class and impoverished due Darwin 's "survival of the fittest", which is considered Social Darwinism. In one of the earliest examples of science fiction, The Time Machine, H.G. Wells’ introduces Social Darwinism along with the theory of evolution.

The notion of human nature has always been historically debated. Explores, philosophers, and writers have always come to argue on what is considered to be barbarism, savagery, and civilized. These constructed categories have put a label on people who do not share the same ideas as one another. These different views of human nature have come to propel change and have come to revolutionized human history. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Michel de Montaigne, and Thomas Hobbes all differ on their ideas of human nature, but they also share common ground. For some of these men the practices of different cultures are categorized as savagery, and for others it has been viewed as noble savagery. Their ideas however have allowed society to view different perspectives of human nature. These perspectives have classified human nature as a way of life, or as an obstacle to what is consider to be the good life. Their ethnographic resources provide a glimpse to all the different cultures and their value to society and history.

Evolutionary theory is an important part of physical anthropology as it helps the researchers to have a solid

Evolution refers to "change over time". In terms of physical anthropology, evolution is changes over time in living organisms. This means that living things have passed their traits from one generation to the next. There are very little changes that occur with each generation, but over time these changes accumulate in each living organism. It is believed that all life on Earth has common ancestry that lived more than 3.5 billions of years ago (Park, 2008).