Anthropology 101 Essay

Topic : The evolutionist building from Darwin’s theory of natural selection

sought to track the development of culture through time just as species were
thought to evolve into complexity, So too were cultures thought to progress
from simple to complex states. Discuss the above statement in the light of 19 th
century social evolution.
Anthropology firstly teaches one about others as well as ourselves in other
words anthropology teaches us about things that we are not familiar with and in
the process we learn things about ourselves that was not entirely understandable
prior to that. Furthermore anthropological research is said to involve a journey
this journey is one through time, a psychological journey which leads one to an
alien world basically it leads us into the previously unknown world. (A,
Rosman, D. G. Rubel, 1997)

Furthermore it is said that anthropologist refer to the way individuals live their
lives as their culture. Such as the norms that they adopt and how they go about
their everyday lives which include their behaviour as well as the things that they
make followed by their ideas. (A, Rosman, D. G. Rubel, 1997) In addition the
purpose of anthropology is the ability to translate cultures while adopting a
holistic approach this way they make it easier for ordinary man to understand
other cultures that are not like ours.

Culture is the central concept of anthropology. Factors such as the economy,

politics, history, music and so forth are investigated by anthropology and the
central focus is to view the interrelatedness of these factors and how they
contribute to cultures hence anthropology being a holistic approach where they
do not focus solely on one factor but rather on everything unlike other areas in
the social sciences such as Psychology which focuses on psychology alone for
instance. (A, Rosman, D. G. Rubel, 1997)

With regards to culture there are of course cultural differences and each culture
is said to have a degree of internal consistency. Furthermore as mentioned
above the items of behaviour followed by many customs are said to form
patterns that compose culture. (A, Rosman, D. G. Rubel, 1997) Culture is
something that is forever changing it evolves overtime and one should
acknowledge the fact that cultures are not perfect therefore anthropologist study
this process of change through time and this is done by examining the historical,
archival and sometimes archaeological data which is said to derive from the
excavation of prehistoric sites. Interestingly culture is said to have a trans
generational quality which means that it continues beyond the lifetime of
individuals hence it is passed on from generation to generation.
Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection sets out to explain evolutionary
change which is said to come through the overall production of differences in
each generation and the different ways of surviving methods of individuals. It is
said that individuals that possess characteristics which increase their chance to
reproduce as well as their offspring will benefit from the heritable advantageous
character therefore enabling them to have off springs like their parents therefore
these characteristics will spread throughout the population. (Ridley, 2004)

Natural selection in relation to the evolutionary framework it is suggested that

in order for natural selection to work it has to occur with a bunch of other
things. Therefore Darwin covers five theories namely Evolution which
according to him is the phase of species that come and go through time and
while they exist they are said to change. (Ridley, 2004) The second theory is
that of common descent which refers to organism’s being descended from or
more common ancestors. The third theory speaks of species multiplying which
states that the diversification of life involves populations of certain species.

These species are said to diverge until they become two different species and
this process is said to have occurred billions of times on Earth. The forth theory
is that of Gradualism which states that evolutionary change occurs through
small changes within populations and states that species are not created over
night. (Ridley, 2004) Finally the theory of natural selection which states that
evolutionary change is said to occur through differences between individuals
and some of these differences are said to give the individual an extra sort of
survival probability. (Ridley, 2004)
Reference List:
http://faculty.cascadia.edu/tsaneda/cultural/files/theories.pdf

http://anthropology.ua.edu/cultures/cultures.php?culture=Social%20Evolutionism

Ridley, M. (ed.) (2004). Evolution. Oxford Readers. Oxford University Press, New York.

The Tapestry of Culture: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology by Abraham Rosman and

Paula G. Rubel (1997, Paperback)