Chapter 1 - Introduction to Biological Anthropology

Belief

Firmly held opinion or conviction typically based on spritual apperhension rahter than emprical proof

Cultural relativism

Antrhopological practice of suspending judgment and seeking to understand another culture on its own terms sympathetically enough so the culture appears to be a coherent and meaningful desing for living

Empirical

Evidence that is vertifiable by observation or experience instead of relying primarily on logic or theory

Faith

Complete trust or confidence in the doctrines of a religion, typically based on spiritual apprehension rather than empirical proof

Holism

Idea that the parts of a system interconnect and interact to make up the whole

Hominins

Species that are regarded as human, directly ancestral to humans, or very closley related to humans

Human adaptation

The ways in which human bodies, people, or cultures change, often in ways better suited to the environment or social context

Human variation

The range of forms of any human characterisitc, such as body shape or skin color

Hypothesis

Explanation of observed facts; details how and why observed phenonmena are the way they are . Scientific hypothesis rely on empirical evidence, are testable, and are able to be refuted

Indigenous

Refers to people who are the original settlers of a given region and have deep ties to that place. Also known as First Peoples, Aboriginal Peoples, or Native Peoples, these populations are in contrast to other groups who have settled, occupied, or colonized the area more recently

Knowledge system

A unified way of knowing that is shared by a group of people and used to explain and predict phenomena

Law

Prediction about what will happen given certain conditions; typically mathematical

Participant observation

Research method common in cultural anthropology that involves living with, observing, and participating in the same activites as the people one studies

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

The principle that the language you speak allows you to think about some things and not other things. This is also known as the linguistic relativity hypothesis

Scholarly peer review

The process whereby an author’s work must pass the scrutiny of other experts in the field before being published in a journal or book

Subdisicplines

Four major areas that make up the discipline of anthropology: biological anthroplogy, cultural anthropology, archaeology, and linguistic anthropology. Applied anthropology. is sometimes considred to be a fifth subdiscipline

Subfiled

different specializations within biological anthropology, including primatology, paleoanthropology, molecular anthropology, bioarchaology, forensic anthropology, and human biology

Theory

An explanation of observations that typically addresses a wide range of phenomena

Scientifc understanding

knowledge accumulated by systematic scientifc study, supported by rigorous testing and organized by general principles