Steps Toward a Unified Anthropology [and Comments and Reply]

It is generally recognized that there exists currently a strong trend toward the "fractionation" of anthropology and the "absorption" of its several subdivisions into other disciplines. On the other hand, if we are striving for a balanced perspective on present-day anthropology we should not ignore a concurrent movement toward the integration of biological and sociocultural anthropology into a unified science. In this paper an attempt is made to appraise certain aspects of this latter trend and to suggest some steps which may be taken immediately by anthropologists to accelerate the development of a unified science of mankind. The long-standing conceptual dichotomy in the study of man has become, in the United States at least, an institutionalized vested interest. This situation, together with resistance to such new orientations as population thinking, bioecological thinking, and neuropsychiatric thinking, are obstacles to unification at both the theoretical and the methodological levels. On the other hand, recent developments such as the new physical anthropology, renewed interest in cultural anthropology, and the use of applied anthropology in community development tend toward a unified anthropology. Theoretical obstacles to unification are gradually being overcome, and the groundwork is being laid for a general working hypotesis and concepts amenable to the empirical test. Certain basic assumptions and major premises which have grown out of an attempt to reconcile several relevant theories are briefly outlined. An important task in the development of research design and methodology, for a unified science of man, is the dicovery of significant comparable units of research. A major contribution of multidisciplinary research in the sciences of man seems to be recognition of the importance of the local community, relatively isolated in space and time, as a natural unit of organization and research in relation to universal human problems of broad scope. The near-isolated breeding population has proved a favorable laboratory for human genetics concerned with certain problems of ongoing human evolution. It is now recognized that the local population or community in transaction with the effective natural ecosystem of which it forms a part, when perceived as a changing event in spacetime, is one of the most promising units of research for elucidating universal biocultural problems involving human groups. Criteria for selection of such communities are outlined with illustrations, and next practical steps are suggested

Epistemology · Perspective (graphical · Sociocultural evolution · Sociology · Unification · Anthropology · Computer Science · Indigenous Studies and Ecology · Philosophy · Race, Genetics, and Society

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