Summary: Essentials Of Physical Anthropology

How do we know what we know about human evolution? The scientific method is a process of methods that has portrayed natural science since the 17th century. In the book Essentials Of Physical Anthropology, by Clark Spencer Larsen, Larsen describes the scientific method as the foundation of science (Larsen 2016:14). In the following, I will explain the components/stages of the scientific method, as well as why it is never just a theory, and the difference between physical, and social science when applying the scientific method. The main component of the scientific method is the research question. Having the research question established you are able to achieve a proposed explanation on something based on available knowledge. To come up with …show more content…
In reality it is never just a theory. For scientist a theory is an explanation that ties up a lot of facts, making science credible and at times predictable. A theory is just the scientific prove, a theory should always be seen as open-ended. Further studying of a scientific case can bring improvements, and can also be disproven. For many a theory is just an idea that lives in people’s heads. We have to remember most scientific theories have a bunch of evidence and facts to back up there theory. For example in the documentary, one of the anthropologist came up with a hypothesis about the Miami holes being part of Mayan ruins, but at the moment everything was questionable and no theory had been proven (Anez 2013). Can a theory be questionable? The answer is yes. I find that the beauty of science. I would imagine we have an answer to everything, but in reality there are many aspects in science that have yet not been fully addressed. This also leads us to the question, is there room for heroes in science? I believe so; there are many people that dedicate their life to prove a new theory or disprove a theory. I also think that technology is helping many scientists, technology is the practical function of science. It also takes a lot of money to start an experiment and prove a theory. So even if there was is room for heroes, many scientist out there will at times never get their experiments completed. Whether you …show more content…
Anthropology is a perfect example of social science, the study of the humankind from the perspective of all people. Physical science has to do with the scientific method; always growing and changing as scientist curiosity explore new ideas. Theory would be part of physical science, and social science. The difference in social science theory and physical science theory is that social science theories are frameworks of evidence to study a social phenomenon. They both have distinctive objects of study, methodology and experimental philosophies, however the boundaries between both are not at times