Biocultural anthropology is the scientific exploration of the relationships between human biology and culture. Physical anthropologists throughout the first half of the 20th century viewed this relationship from a racial perspective; that is, from the assumption that typological human biological differences lead to cultural differences.^[1] After World War II the emphasis began to shift toward an effort to explore the role culture plays in shaping human biology. Contemporary biocultural anthropologists view culture as having several key roles in human biological variation: For the scientific journal named Science, see Science (journal). ... Human biology is an interdisciplinary academic field of biology, biological anthropology, and medicine which focuses on humans; it is closely related to primate biology, and a number of other fields. ... Culture (Culture from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning to cultivate,) generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance. ... Physical anthropology, sometimes called biological anthropology, studies the mechanisms of biological evolution, genetic inheritance, human adaptability and variation, primatology, primate morphology, and the fossil record of human evolution. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999... This article is about race as an intraspecies classification. ... Typology in anthropology is the division of culture by races. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000...

• Culture is a major human adaptation, permitting individuals and populations to adapt to widely varying local ecologies.
• Characteristic human biological or biobehavioral features, such as a large frontal cortex and intensive parenting compared to other primates, are viewed in part as an adaption to the complex social relations created by culture.^[2]
• Culture shapes the political economy, thereby influencing what resources are available to individuals to feed and shelter themselves, protect themselves from disease, and otherwise maintain their health.^[1]
• Culture shapes the way people think about the world, altering their biology by influencing their behavior (e.g., food choice) or more directly through psychosomatic effects (e.g., the biological effects of psychological stress).^[3]

While biocultural anthropologists are found in many academic anthropology departments, usually as a minority of the faculty, certain departments have placed considerable emphasis on the "biocultural synthesis." Historically, this has included Emory University and the University of Alabama, each of which built Ph.D. programs around biocultural anthropology; Binghamton University, which has a M.S. program in biomedical anthropology; UMass Amherst, and others. Paul Baker, an anthropologist at Penn State whose work focused upon human adaptation to environmental variations, is credited with having popularized the concept of "biocultural" anthropology as a distinct subcategory of anthropology in general.^[4] (Ecology is sometimes used incorrectly as a synonym for the natural environment. ... The frontal lobe is an area in the brains of vertebrates. ... “Parental care” redirects here. ... The eye is an adaptation. ... The Politics series Politics Portal This box:      Political economy was the original term for the study of production, the acts of buying and selling, and their relationships to laws, customs and government. ... A psychosomatic illness is one with physical manifestations and supposed psychological cause, often diagnosed when any known or identifiable physical cause was excluded by medical examination. ... In medical terms, stress is the disruption of homeostasis through physical or psychological stimuli. ... Emory University is a private university located in the city of Atlanta, Georgia. ... The University of Alabama (also known as Alabama, UA or colloquially as Bama) is a public coeducational university located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA. Founded in 1831, UA is the flagship campus of the University of Alabama System. ... Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. ... Overlooking center of campus. ... A masters degree is an academic degree usually awarded for completion of a postgraduate course of one or two years in duration. ... The center of the UMass Amherst campus. ... The Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (commonly known as Penn State) is a state-related land-grant university in Pennsylvania, with over 80,000 students at 24 campuses throughout the state. ... Anthropology (from Greek: ἀνθρωπος, anthropos, human being; and λόγος, logos, knowledge) is the study of humanity. ...

Controversy

Other anthropologists, both biological and cultural, have criticized the biocultural synthesis, generally as part of a broader critique of "four-field holism" in U.S. anthropology (see anthropology main article). Typically such criticisms rest on the belief that biocultural anthropology imposes holism upon the biological and cultural subfields without adding value, or even destructively. For instance, contributors in the edited volume Unwrapping the Sacred Bundle: Reflections on the Disciplining of Anthropology^[5] argued that the biocultural synthesis, and anthropological holism more generally, are artifacts from 19th century social evolutionary thought that inappropriately impose scientific positivism upon cultural anthropology. Some departments of anthropology have fully split, usually dividing scientific from humanistic anthropologists, such as Stanford's highly publicized 1998 division into departments of "Cultural and Social Anthropology" and "Anthropological Sciences." Underscoring the continuing controversy, this split is now being reversed over the objections of some faculty.^[6] Other departments, such as at Harvard, have distinct biological and sociocultural anthropology "wings" not designed to foster cross subdisciplinary interchange. Physical anthropology, sometimes called biological anthropology, studies the mechanisms of biological evolution, genetic inheritance, human adaptability and variation, primatology, primate morphology, and the fossil record of human evolution. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Holism (from holos, a Greek word meaning all, entire, total) is the idea that all the properties of a given system (biological, chemical, social, economic, mental, linguistic, etc. ... Anthropology (from Greek: ἀνθρωπος, anthropos, human being; and λόγος, logos, knowledge) is the study of humanity. ... [[Image:Cultural evolution. ... // Positivism is a philosophy that states that the only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge, and that such knowledge can only come from positive affirmation of theories through strict scientific method. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... For the scientific journal named Science, see Science (journal). ... Stanford may refer: Stanford University Places: Stanford, Kentucky Stanford, California, home of Stanford University Stanford Shopping Center Stanford, New York, town in Dutchess County. ... Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and a member of the Ivy League. ...

References

External links

• Essays [7] by Prof. Jack Kelso