The Origns of The Species by Charles Darwin Essay

The Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary defines cultural anthropology as the anthropology that deals with â€Å"human culture [especially] with respect to social structure, language, law, politics, religion, magic, art, and technology† (1998:282). Anthropology, when broken down, simply means the study of man (anthropos: man and ology: study). The word culture comes from the Latin word â€Å"colere,† which means to cultivate, or to worship. When you understand the meaning of the word, it provides you with a better understanding of what the word represents. Culture is something people create and then â€Å"worship† as a way to feel like a part of something. Cultural anthropology aims to study cultures and how they came to form. WHAT IS CULTURE AND WHERE†¦show more content†¦Because many anthropologists at the time were also religious, degradation theory fit well because it coincided with the Bible and the story of the Tower of Babel. Anthropologists also liked to use phrenology, which was â€Å"the study of the conformation of the skull based on the belief that it is indicative of mental faculties and character† (Merriam-Webster 1998:876), as one of the â€Å"scientific methods† to support racism. An anthropologist would use phrenology to say that certain groups of people were, because of the shape of their head, primitive and lacking intelligence. Surprisingly, phrenology is still used today. In a study published at the University of California, Riverside, researchers â€Å"identified leaders’ facial structure as a specific physical trait that correlates with organizational performance† (Haselhuhn, Ormiston, and Wong 2011). Whether it is a nineteenth century anthropologist or a group of researchers at the University of California in 2011, it is still phrenology. Anthropologists credit Lewis Henry Morgan as being the founder of American cultural anthropology or more broadly as the fath er of â€Å"American anthropology.† Many anthropologists at the time were known as â€Å"arm chair† academics, meaning that they studied anthropology from a distance while sitting in chairs, reading, and thinking; Morgan was not an â€Å"arm chair† anthropologist; He went out into the field to learn