ANT203H5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Carl Linnaeus, Georges Cuvier, Uniformitarianism
Document Summary
Biological anthropology is an evolutionary science focused on human biological origins, evolution and variation. It is important to understand exactly what a science is and what the relationship between facts, hypotheses, and theories is. A fact is a verifiable truth evolution is a fact. Living organisms have changed in the past, and continue to change today. Hypothesis an explanation of observed facts. For a hypothesis to be scientific, it must be testable: the potential must exist for a hypothesis to be rejected. Theory a set of hypotheses that have been tested repeatedly and that have not been rejected. This term is sometimes used in a difference sense in social science literature. Evolution is both a fact and a theory. Scientific research is a dynamic process, which new evidence being used to support, clarify, and most importantly, reject previous ideas. Charles darwin is most often credited as the father of evolutionary thought : he built on the ideas of earlier scholars.
