Introduction to Biological AnthropologyExam 1 Review QuestionsThe following list is not inclusive, but is intended for help you direct your studies over the next week. I wish you the best of luck, and please contact your TA via e-mail if you need additional help.What does anthropology mean? The study of human beingsWhat are the four fields of anthropology? Physical (applied), cultural (applied), archaeology (applied) and linguisticWhat is physical anthropology? What areas of study does it include? Human Biology; geneology. Taking anthro and figuring out sex, race, age. ie) forensics.What is sociocultural anthropology? What areas of study does it include? Study of cultural and living people, patterns of thoughts and traditions; local vs. cross-cultural: human universal “is there something that links us all?”What is participant observation? Ethnography: usually a book, thesis detailing the results; becoming apart of that culture.What is archaeology? What areas of study does it include? Study of material cultural remains- things left behind by others. Pre-historic and historic: historic being “since written documents.”What is linguistic anthropology? What areas of study does it include? Relationship between language and culture, relationship between language and history. Structural linguistics: how language works… Do people w/ different languages think differently? Historical linguistics: languages tend to cluster based on how close they are. What is applied anthropology? Give some examples. Biological: forensics. Archaeology: Cultural resource management; finding historical material goods and returning to descendants. Cultural: Human terrain. How we use anthro in our dayto day life. How is anthropology a field of mediation? Individual and group. Colonial and indigenous. Exotic and Mundane. Present and past. Human and Animal. Science and folk knowledge. Humanities and science. Finds connection between two opposites. What is an ontological question? Questions that can be asked.What is an epistemological question? Questions that can be answered.What are some of the assumptions of science?Things are as they seem, the experts are smart and honest. What are the three major steps in “normative” science? Hypothesis, collect data and explanation.What is a hypothesis? A provisional explanation for a phenomenon which requires falsification through testing. What are some of its characteristics? Statement about the world, free of bias, must be testable, must be falsifiableWhy do scientists try to falsify hypotheses? What is the logical rational behind this?It’s easier to find something false, than try to prove something corrdct. It’s impossible to try to prove something. What is the difference between a hypothesis and a theory?A theory is the result of testing the hypothesis… a theory replaces the hypothesis. A theory hasn’t been falsified. How do you test a hypothesis about something that happened a long time ago?Evolution, dinosaur extinctionWhat is the difference between proximate and ultimate causes?The proximate call is the immediate cause for behavior (THE HOW), the ultimate cause is the real reason for behavior (THE WHY).What is naturalism?A philosophical viewpoint that everything arises from natural properties and causes… supernatural and spiritual explanations are excluded.What is parsimony?An extreme unwillingness to spend money or use resources.What did Plato say about essentialism?An ideal form exists for every organism, variation is merely flaws or deviation from that perfect form, every creature has an essence.Who was James Ussher and what did he say about the age of the earth? How did he figure this out?6,000 years old. He counted back the ages of people in the bible starting with the descendants of Adam.What was The Great Chain of Being?Ladder. Man at the top, minerals and rocks at the bottom.Who was Nicholaus Steno? What was the Law of Superposition?Father of geology; a basic law of geochronology, stating that in any undisturbed sequence of rocks: the youngest on top, the oldest on the bottom.Who was Carolous Linnaeus? What were his three main accomplishments?Published “Systema Naturae” in 1735; a fundamentally different way of classifying life than the Great Chain of Being. 3 accomplishments: The nested hierarchy, binomial nomenclature (modern mating system), recognized similarity between apes and man.Who was Buffon and what did he say about the age of the earth? How did he figure this out?Disagreed with Linnaeus, tried to re-date the earth. He believed that the earth formed from hot debris when a comet hit the sun. Thought the earth was about 75,000 years based on hisexperiments on cooling iron balls.Who was Georges Cuvier? What was catastrophism?He knew that fossils were extinct animals, which was troubling religiously. Catastrophism is the idea that the earth had withstood multiple catastrophic events (biblical flood was the most recent). These events caused extinction and explained the geological record.Who were James Hutton and Charles Lyell? Hutton: Cuvier’s rival. Lyell: geologist obsessed with the implications of evolutionary theory. Wrote “Principles of Geology.” Influenced DarwinWhat was Uniformitarianism?The assumption that the same natural laws and processes that operate in the universe now have always operated in the pass; they apply everywhere in the universe.Who was Jean-Baptiste Lamarck? What was his contribution to evolutionary theory?Major evolutionary thinker before Darwin. Developed theory on the Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics. He believed that organisms tried to make themselves better during their lifetimes and the improvements were passed down to the offspring.Who was Thomas Malthus? How did his ideas affect Darwin’s thoughts?Interested in the relationship of human populations to resources. Wrote “An Essay on the Principle of Population.” His theory was that you need the poor.How did biological thought have to change in order to set the stage for natural selection?Essentialism. It goes from the thought that species were stagnant, to species having variation.How did philosophical thought have to change in order to set the stage for natural selection?How to move from religious thought to more scientific thoughts. From the Great Chain of Being, to putting Man in the middle of science.How did geological thought have to change in order to set the stage for natural selection?We needed an
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