Anthropology Vs Religion

Anthropology is a field that incorporates both humanistic and scientific approaches to study humankind. Anthropology is considered a science because anthropologists observe, assign function to matter, and practice various procedures. Anthropology is humanistic because it “describes patterns within a cultural context determined by ethnographic research” (McCaffrey, 1/31). Eric Wolf said that anthropology is concerned with the organization of matter and mind. Marvin Harris views anthropology as a field that performs empirical, inductive-deductive, quantifiable, and able to be replicated techniques. The scientific method is commonly utilized in this field for the formation of a hypothesis, rationale, data, and conclusions in research. Another

He believes that there is “no singular scientific method, rather several methods of science” (McCaffrey, 2/21). Science is based on doubt, describing the world through an authoritarian perspective, and giving the best explanation instead of the truth. However, religion is grounded on faith and revealing the truth. Scientific statements must be testable, but when tests are limited predictions can be made if they are compared to actual phenomena. According to Tattersall’s article, science is more collectivistic than religion. Even though both topics have their differences, they are both an important aspect in

The most common are sociocultural, linguistic, biological, and archaeology. Sociocultural is interesting because generalizations can be created about groups of people through ethnographic evidence (McCaffrey, 1/24). Some of the completed studies were on kinship, trade, sexuality, and gender. Linguistic anthropology is fascinating because ancient languages can be reconstructed and changes of all languages can be seen over time. For example, Shakespeare dialect has converted into today’s modern form. The biocultural subfield is unique because it has countless subgroups within itself. Some of the main topics are paleoanthropology, human genetics, and primatology. Archaeology is also interesting because it looks at prehistoric, historic, and contemporary time periods. Valley Forge, the urban ruins, and Machu Picchu would have never been discovered if this subfield did not exist (McCaffrey, 1/24).

To add, the four subfields of anthropology intertwine to study worldwide issues. Sociolinguistics links the cultural subgroup to linguistics. The biocultural approach falls in between the cultural and biological sections. Cultural diffusion plays a part in both linguistics and archaeology. The biological and archaeology subfields connect bioarcheology, paleoanthropology, and paleoecology. The sharing among these four subcategories are vital to