preview

Subfield Of Anthropology

Decent Essays

Evolution is a topic that has been thoroughly discussed between religion (creationism) and science ever since Charles Darwin proposed its early theories in 1858 (O’neil, 1998), and to this day these theories are still controversial to some, and never completely agreed upon; moreover, we’ll discover that even though there are many true factors that prove time and again that the theories of adaptation are happening right before our eyes, and research over the last 158 years back the evolutionary scientific theories; there are still some folks that refute science’s evidence as conceivable, and will deem evolution as hogwash arguing their value that God is the world’s sole creator. Throughout this assignment we will discuss where two of the subfields …show more content…

Thus, making it safe to say that when an Anthropologist studies humans as a species they must include evolution, fossil records, genetics, and human ecology. All of these traits that are considered when studying humans also apply when studying nonhumans species, and can be closely related to studies of evolution since the physical anthropology subfield can basically be another name for biological anthropology which has used ancestry to confirm how modern humans got to where we are, and from where we came as a species over nonhuman animals. Scientists have (and continue) to calculate data from human studies, and nonhuman studies with the most known being our most human-like ancestors apes, chimpanzees, and other primates. Contained within these studies scientists believe that the human evolutionary role was very clear based on appearance alone; however, upon further observation into the physical subfield of anthropology much more depth than just how appearance can be added to how we have evolved over the …show more content…

Most modern culture likes to associate evolution with the slow process of a primate morphing into what we humans look like today. In my opinion this fuels creationist’s ideals, by only connecting evolution to only what can be seen. The subfield of Physical Anthropology helped evolutionary theorists when the brain came to the forefront of scientific studies, and many experts worked on this facet to debunk cultures one-sided view of evolution. Scientific panels were able to cultivate hypotheses that diet was a major factor in an evolution of brain development. It was pointed out during the examinations that diet’s thousands of years ago consisted of mostly red meat for sustained proteins. For the most part this was true to an extent; however; some felt that aquatic proteins played more of a role than what was believed to be fact about the diets of our ancestors. Gibbons claimed, “Although a few researchers suggested that the source was brain and other organ meat, most agreed that our ancestors must have relied on fish or shellfish” (Gibbons, 2002). Most whom feel that the theories of evolution are true will agree that primates are our closest ancestors, and that looks alone are not the only factor that sets us apart from our primate friends. Everything science has studied, past and present from organs, behaviors, and

Get Access