ANTH100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Uniformitarianism, Pleiotropy, Natural Kind

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Anthropology
• Course: ANTH100
• Professor: Nicole Hayes

Document Summary

Anthropology: the study of human nature, human society and the human past. Scholarly discipline that aims to describe in the broadest possible sense what it means to be human. Anthropologists believe human lives are always entangled in complex patterns of work and family, power and meaning. Anthropology is distinct because it is holistic, comparative, field based and evolutionary. Holistic: a characteristic of the anthropological perspective that describes, at the highest and most inclusive level, how anthropology tries to integrate all that is known about human beings and their activities. All aspects of human life intersect with one another in complex ways. Comparison: a characteristic of anthropological perspective that requires anthropologists to consider similarities and differences in as wide a range of human societies as possible before generalizing about human nature, human society, or the human past. Ex: eating insects is normal in some social groups and uncommon in others.