Essay Paper

Essay Paper

Question 1:

Anthropology is the study of humankind, in general, the study of humans everywhere. Past humanities go beyond several generations and the study of anthropology allows us to understand these generations, their complex relationships, and the structures of various cultures for the benefit of understanding humanity.

This study of humankind allows us to study humans in many ways and can be divided into four related fields - the study of physical or biological anthropology, the study of linguistics, the study of archaeology, and the study of cultural or social anthropology (George 1992).

The study of physical or biological anthropology, includes topics such as nutrition, development, forensics, and primates - topics that reflect on humans. "One could say physical anthropology is closely related to the biological sciences just as cultural anthropology is closely related to the other social sciences and the humanities, however it is the integration of these two approaches that characterizes anthropology" (Haviland 7).

Science, on the other hand, opposes Creationism by providing a different explanation. According to science, human life was not created by an almighty being, but by an extensive natural process known as evolution. In a general sense, evolution is the gradual change of an organism over many generations which, ultimately, may result in the formation of whole new species. With the contribution of numerous scientists, several concepts have been formulated to explain this gradual change logically. Natural selection, first of all, is based on survival of the fittest: only the organisms best adapted to their environment will survive and eventually reproduce, causing future generations of those organisms to bear the same traits. In other words, since the unqualified organisms of a specie will gradually disappear, genetic change will occur among the resulting population. However, genetic variation is not purely caused by environmental factors.

Question 2

The theory of evolution arises out of man's need to explain the origins of both the Universe and Life. Evolution may be defined as that continual natural process through which organisms have acquired their peculiar structure and functions. Whilst this is the generally accepted explanation to the origins of the Universe and Life in history there have been many other theories put forward, such as spontaneous generation that is the belief that living matter can be generated from non-living matter.

In layman's terms evolution is the process responsible for the changes over the extent of Earth's existence. Evolution began with the development of certain conditions on Earth which were favourable to the formation of life and the changing of these simple life forms over time into the organisms observable on earth today, including humans.

Darwin, though not the first to contribute to the idea of evolution is often credited with its development. It was after his joint presentation with Wallace that evolution really began to gain widespread acceptance in society. In his book "Origin of Species" Darwin proposes a two-part argument to support his evolutionary theory, 'Struggle for Existence' and 'Natural Selection' (Gould 2002).

The 'Struggle for Existence' argument proposes two principles; ...