ANTH 011 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Scopes Trial, Empirical Process, Biological Anthropology

• School: College of The Sequoias
• Department: Anthropology (ANTH)
• Course: ANTH 011
• Professor: Allen

Document Summary

Creationists- people who prefer religious explanations for the origins of humankind. Scopes monkey trial- best known case- 1925- conservative christians wanted to ban the teaching of evolution in public schools; scopes (teacher charged w/ illegally teaching evolution) lost. Antievolution laws eventually were dropped; courts ruled in favor of separation of church and state. Courts stated that evolution is a unifying principle in the life sciences. What is science?- a process, not a result, which involves. Deduction- a conclusion that follows logically from a set of observations. Observation- the gathering of scientific information by watching a phenomenon. Formulating a hypothesis- a preliminary explanation of a phenomenon. Experimentation- the collection of evidence (data) that either supports or refutes the hypothesis. Scientific method- comprised of above steps; the way scientists proceed when they have a question that needs answering or a possible explanation for a natural phenomenon that needs testing.