The Importance Of Anthropology As A Science

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What does anthropology really mean? Some say that anthropology is the study of human societies and cultures and their development. Others affirm anthropology as the science of human zoology, evolution, and ecology. But the absolute mystery of anthropology, is it certainly art or science? As I was reading the text written by Michael Carrithers, I realized that anthropology is a difficult subject to tackle. Some say it’s classified as science, some say its art. For me, anthropology is an art because for one to truly understand and explain what it is, he must personally experience the field of what he is studying. Although writing anthropological statements include evidence or data, it is much more based in the anthropologist’s point of view regarding what he observed. If anthropology were to be classified as science, the resulting written work of the anthropologists’ must be indifferent. Furthermore, Anthropological knowledge is basically self- explanatory; critical and descriptive and could change over time. Although this may be true, Anthropology may be classified as science because of evidence which aims at scientific explanation so as ethnography which aims to understand interpretations; could become a scientific material if and only if associated with "an appropriate descriptive comment that clarifies…show more content…
Anthropology according to some is factual and based on observation which is similar to science as its representations are based from truth. It is more of knowledge than doing the activity itself. By the same token as Sperber’s statements, Carrithers is trying to connote that anthropology is certainly a science due to the fact that its evidences cannot be purely established on

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