The alternative introduction to biological anthropology / Jonathan Marks.

Author/creator Marks, Jonathan, 1955-
Format Book
Publication InfoNew York : Oxford University Press, ©2011.
Descriptionxvii, 280 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Subjects
Physical anthropology.

Contents Machine generated contents note: ch. 1 What Is Anthropology, What Is Biological Anthropology, and Should I Be Getting Science Credit for This? (On the Philosophy of Science) -- Theme -- What Is Anthropology? -- The Subfields of Anthropology -- The Anthropology of Science -- The Normative View of Science: Scientific Method -- The Social Matrix of Science -- Relativizing Science -- The Origins of Anthropology -- The Origins of Physical Anthropology -- Biological Anthropology Today -- References and Further Reading -- ch. 2 Where Did Our Scientific Ideas about Ourselves Come From? (On the History of Science) -- Theme -- The Beginnings of a New View of Nature -- The Scientific Revolution -- The Decline of Degeneration -- The Anatomy of a "Pygmie" -- Biblical Fallibility, or at Least Incompleteness -- Monogenism -- Cause and Effect -- The Great Chain of Being -- Buffon's Objection to the Nested Hierarchy -- Extinction -- Natural Theology -- Uniformitarian Geology -- Adam's World -- Human Evolution -- References and Further Reading
Contents Ch. 3 Can You Tell If You Are a Darwinist? (On Theories of Evolution) -- Theme -- Darwin's Argument -- Where People Fit In -- The Sacrifice -- Implications for Pattern -- Implications for Species -- Implications for Biological History -- Implications for Relating Humans to Other Animals -- Phylogeny: The Core of Darwinism -- Other Darwinisms -- Social Darwinism -- Neo-Darwinism -- The "Synthetic Theory" -- Evolution at the Molecular Level -- Punctuated Equilibria -- Sociobiology -- Universal Darwinism -- Atheistic Darwinism -- References and Further Reading -- ch. 4 Why Do I Look Like the Cable Guy, Daddy? (On Issues of Human Heredity) -- Theme -- The Theory of Particulate Inheritance: Mendel's Laws -- Ten Non-Mendelian Laws -- The Chromosome Theory -- Linkage -- Crossing-Over -- Polygenic Inheritance -- Environmental Influence on Phenotypes -- Unit Characters -- Properties of Heterozygotes -- Pleiotropy -- Imprinting -- Extra-nuclear Inheritance -- The Molecular Genomic Basis of Heredity -- The Alpha-Globin Gene Cluster -- Mutation -- Meanings of the Gene and Genetics -- References and Further Reading
Contents Ch. 5 Are We Here? If So, Why? (On Issues of Microevolution) -- Theme -- Do Things Exist for a Reason? -- Principal Abstraction: The Gene Pool -- Gene Flow -- Inbreeding -- Natural Selection -- Genetic Drift -- Sickle Cell -- Why Is the Gene Pool the Way It Is? -- Adaptation or Founder Effect? -- Another Point Illustrated by Sickle Cell and Phenylketonuria -- Sickle Cell, Tay-Sachs, and Genetic Screening -- Kinship as a Biocultural Construction -- Genetic History and the Diversity Project -- Who Owns the Body? -- References and Further Reading -- ch. 6 Building Better Monkeys, or at Least Different Ones (On Systematics) -- Theme -- Speciation -- Specific Mate Recognition Systems -- Genetic Systems Producing Incompatibility -- Species as Individuals -- Levels and Rates of Evolution -- Developmental Genetics -- Allometric Growth -- Extinction -- Classification -- Systematics and Phylogeny -- Classical and Cladistic Taxonomy -- Phylogenetics -- Limitations of the Phylogenetic Method -- References and Further Reading
Contents Ch. 7 Is That an Ape in Your Genes, or Are You Just Glad to See Me? (On the Place of Humans in the Natural Order) -- Theme -- Primate Classification -- Problems of Uniformitarianism -- Genetic and Anatomical Data -- The Mammals -- Our Place in Primate Systematics -- The Living Apes -- The Trichotomy -- Cladism, Reductionism, and the Rise of the Hominins -- What Does It Mean to Be 98% Genetically Chimpanzee? -- References and Further Reading -- ch. 8 Apes Run Around Naked, Live in Trees, and Fling Their Poo. Do You? (On the Relevance of Apes to Understanding Humans) -- Theme -- What Primates Can and Can't Tell Us -- Primate Fieldwork -- Primates in Groups -- Social Behavior and Ecology -- Food -- Sexual Activity and Parenthood -- Models for Human Evolution -- Baboons in the Sixties, Chimps in the Nineties -- Looking Elsewhere for Clues about Human Evolution -- The Ape Mind -- Culture -- Conservation -- References and Further Reading -- ch. 9 Being and Becoming (On the Relevance of Humans to Understanding Humans)
Contents Theme -- Human Nature -- The Most Fundamental Human Adaptation: Bipedalism -- Why Be Bipedal? -- The Second Fundamental Human Adaptation: The Teeth -- Why Reduce the Canines? -- The Third Fundamental Human Adaptation: The Brain -- Why Be Big Brained? -- Social and Life-History Novelties -- Physiological and Sexual Novelties -- What Does It Take to Make a Scenario of Human Evolution Valuable? -- Cultural Evolution -- References and Further Reading -- ch. 10 If History Is Humanities, and Evolution Is Science, What Is Paleoanthropology? (On the Assumptions of a Diachronic Science) -- Theme -- Scientific Inferences Across Time -- Skeletal Biology -- Sexual Dimorphism -- Ontogeny -- Geographic Variation -- Paleopathology -- Sources of Morphological Variation -- Lumping and Splitting -- Fossilization -- Other Considerations -- Rights and Responsibilities in Paleoanthropology -- Kinds of Evidence -- Superposition and Association -- Dating -- Doing the Best We Can with Lost Data -- Making Sense of Human Ancestry -- Classifying the Living Apes and Fossil Ancestors -- References and Further Reading
Contents Ch. 11 The Dental and the Mental (On Making Sense of the Early Diversification of the Human Lineage) -- Theme -- The Shadow of Piltdown Man -- A Hominid Origin -- Discovery of the Australopithecines -- Australopithecus: Basal Bipeds -- Paranthropus -- The Dental Adaptation -- Early Homo: The Mental Adaptation -- The Beginning of Cultural Evolution -- References and Further Reading -- ch. 12 What to Do When Confronted by a Neandertal (On Continuity and Discontinuity) -- Theme -- The Human Lineage -- The Mental and Social Life of Homo erectus -- Homo sapiens, the Wise Species -- Neandertal Life -- Anatomically Modern People -- The Emergence of Art -- The Political Nature of Ancestry -- Testing Paleontological Models Genetically -- References and Further Reading -- ch. 13 Just How Different Is Different? (On Race) -- Theme -- Race -- Patterns of Contemporary Human Variation -- Why Do We See Races? -- Race as a Biocultural Category -- Asking Scientific Questions about Human Diversity -- Race Is to Ethnicity as Sex Is to Gender, But Not Quite -- What Is Innate? -- Patterns of Human Genetic and Behavioral Variation -- References and Further Reading
Contents Ch. 14 Nature/Culture, or How Science Manages to Give Little Answers to Big Questions (On the Non-reductive Core of Anthropology) -- Theme -- Adaptability and the Human Condition -- Folk Theories of Heredity -- The State of the Species -- The Anthropology of Science -- Bioethics -- Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA): Who Owns the Bones? -- Origin Myths, Scientific and Otherwise -- Biocultural Studies, or Cyborg Anthropology -- References and Further Reading.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in other formOnline version: Marks, Jonathan (Jonathan M.), 1955- Alternative introduction to biological anthropology. New York : Oxford University Press, c2011
LCCN 2010033832
ISBN9780195157031 (pbk.)
ISBN0195157036 (pbk.)
Standard identifier# 3609678