I noted in the overview that Alfred N. Whitehead once observed how major advances in civilization are processes that “all but wreck the society” where they occur.
Question 1:
· How did the invention of typography wreck society in the 14th15th Centuries? Explain with 2-3 examples.
· What other modern technological advances since the printing presshas had a similar affect on society? What was it?
· Compare and contrast the modern advancement to how the printing press wrecked society in the 14-15th centuries. Please include 2-3 different ways it has wrecked society.
2.
Essay
ANT
Based on the Content lecture and your own ideas, discuss how learning about cultural relativism can help us reduce our ethnocentrism.
1 page
READ:
What is Anthropology? What is Culture?
What is Science?
There are
sciences, such as the
natural sciences (biology, biological anthropology. chemistry, physics,
astronomy, meteorology) and the
social sciences (sociology, cultural anthropology, psychology, human
geography, political science, economics). But what is science, itself?
In high school, science is taught as a method of investigation with the following steps:
1. Form a hypothesis (a testable question about the observable world)
2. Set up a controlled experiment in a laboratory.
3.Test the hypothesis by running the experiment.
4. Draw conclusions from the results.
5. Modify and re-run the experiment if necessary.
At the college level, however, it is important to know the following are the actual steps in the process.
1. Observe the world and ponder it, producing questions.
2. Formulate the questions as testable hypotheses
3. Develop a methodology for controlled testing of the hypothesis, whether the testing will be in a
laboratory or out in nature, whether quantitative or qualitative data are collected. The methodology
should be critiqued to guarantee that the experiment’s measurements, sample sizes, reporting,
etc., are in accordance with standards. Trial experiments may be done to correct problems before
a full-scale experiment.
4. The experiment is conducted, provided that conditions (such as permissions, financing, personnel,
technology, and weather, etc.) permit.
5. Data from the experiment should be analyzed by the defined methods.
6. A report must be written and submitted for review by peers or other recognized experts in the field.
7. If accepted with corrections, the report should be published for others in the field to read.
What is also important to know is the fact that science is conducted by scientists who are human beings
with
biases, meaning a prejudice for or against a particular point of view. Bias may be the result of the
historical context or even the personality of the reviewer. Science is a human endeavor.
There are five features of science, all of which must be part of a particular research in order for it to be
valid.
1.
Empiricism – Data must be derived from observation, either directly through the senses or with the
assistance of instruments.
2.
Testability – There must be conditions under which the hypothesis is rejected.
3.
Uniformitarianism – Given the same conditions, experiments or natural occurrences will produce the
same results.
4.
Reproducibility- Experimental results must be confirmed by other scientists who have no bias for or
against the hypothesis..
5.
Parsimony – the simplest explanation for the facts is accepted as true.
A
theory, in science, is not just an untested hypothesis. It is a set of laws or law-like generalizations based
on facts.
What is Anthropology?
Anthropology consists of four fields of study, as follows:
1.
Physical (Biological) Anthropology – is a natural science including the study of nonhuman primates, their
anatomy,
behavior and evolution; human evolution, human variation, human skeletal anatomy and forensics; population
genetics.
2.
Archeology – is the study of past cultures, both prehistoric (before written records) and historic (with written records),
focusing on material culture (artifacts and other remains).
3.
Cultural Anthropology – is the study of living cultures: ecology and subsistence adaptations; economics, politics, and
kinship systems; religion and art. An
ethnography is a report about a particular culture’s lifeways.
Ethnology compares
different cultures. There are many subfields within cultural anthropology, such as urban anthropology, or ethnographic
film.
4.
Linguistics – is the study of language and languages. There are many subfields in linguistics, including anthropological linguistics (“language and culture”) and sociolinguistics (use of language in different social contexts)
What is Culture?
Culture was defined by the 19th century anthropologist E.B. Tylor as follows:
“Culture is that
complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and
any other capabilities
acquired by man” (humans) ”
as a member of society.”
This means that one’s culture is learned in one’s society and its parts of integrated into a
working system.
Culture was also defined as the ”
superorganic” by A.L. Kroeber. This means that it is above
and beyond the biology of the human; it is not inborn, but learned.
Leslie White described culture as a
three-layer cake, with the following layers:
Ideology (Belief Systems)
Social Structure
Subsistence Patterns
Subsistence patterns (food and shelter) influence
social structure (economics, politics, and kinship systems), which, in turn,
influence
ideology (religious or political belief systems). There is even influence from the higher layers (such as ideology)
down to the lower layers, such as rules about kinship relations or dietary rules. Human culture is, therefore, an integrated
system.
G.P. Murdock wrote about
cultural universals, that is, what all humans share. This is because humans all have the same
needs for subsistence, for political and kinship systems, for belief systems. As such, human cultures share such diverse traits
as rites of passage (ceremonies at different stages of life) and dancing and joking. Despite cultural universals, humans
experience
ethnocentrism (belief in the superiority of one’s own culture) and culture shock (a negative emotional reaction)
when encountering another culture’s lifeways. Anthropology teaches us to reduce our ethnocentrism by understanding that
cultures should be judged in terms of their own specific adaptive needs in their particular environments. This is known as
cultural relativism.
Last,
cultures change over time due to
environmental,
demographic (populational), and
historical changes. Humans experienced great
environmental change at the end of the Pleistocene (Ice Age) epoch, inventing new tools for new subsistence patterns,
leading to new economic and political practices. Changes in demographics (population size and structure) have occurred
for millennia, altering cultural adaptations from food collection to food production and to urban state societies. Historical
changes such as continuing technological advances and political actions are also responsible for cultural change.
