What is the difference between an assumption about human nature and a scientifically derived idea about human nature How much of human behavior is Biological How much is cultural for instance learned behaviors like patriarchy or inequality If culture is both adaptive an maladaptive then what kind of behaviors lead to maladaptive culture Are we becoming Post human Culture The ensemble of human meanings practices and modes of production that form the shared life ways of a give group the cultivated concepts habits skills arts instruments and institutions of a people Cultures are traditions and customs transmitted through learning meaning they are shared beliefs and practices that form the behavior of the people exposed to them The process of adopting culture is called enculturation Ethnocentrism the tendency to view one s culture as superior and use one s own cultural value to make negative assumptions about another culture Scientists much avoid the bias and ethnocentrism of their own culture Boas method broke with the then dominant British school of anthropology focuses on grand theories of human development He brought the scientific method arguing that one could formulate theories and conclusions only after rigorous collection and examination of hard evidence Empirical Ethnographic field work learn local languages cultural boundaries as overlapping cultural relativism Cultural relativism is the understanding that all cultures are valid arise from own circumstances and histories and cannot be judged by the basis on another country The view that behavior in one cultures should not be used to judge the standards of another that each culture deserves respect in its own right
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