Book contents
- Evaluating Evidence in Biological Anthropology
- Cambridge Studies in Biological and Evolutionary Anthropology
- Evaluating Evidence in Biological Anthropology
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I The Strange and the Familiar
- 1 Women in Human Evolution Redux
- 2 Hegemony and the Central Asian Paleolithic Record
- 3 Anthropology Now
- 4 The Strangeness of Not Eating Insects
- 5 Methods without Meaning
- Part II (Re)Discovery of Evidence
- Index
- References
3 - Anthropology Now
How Popular Science (Mis)Characterizes Human Evolution
from Part I - The Strange and the Familiar
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 November 2019
By
Book contents
- Evaluating Evidence in Biological Anthropology
- Cambridge Studies in Biological and Evolutionary Anthropology
- Evaluating Evidence in Biological Anthropology
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I The Strange and the Familiar
- 1 Women in Human Evolution Redux
- 2 Hegemony and the Central Asian Paleolithic Record
- 3 Anthropology Now
- 4 The Strangeness of Not Eating Insects
- 5 Methods without Meaning
- Part II (Re)Discovery of Evidence
- Index
- References
Summary
In this chapter, I examine how scholars, public intellectuals, and popular authors construct and present narratives that explain and explicate human origins. I am interested in how writers from outside of anthropology use anthropological datasets and concepts when discussing who we are, how we behave, and where we came from. While the role of creationism is well-studied (Newport 2012; Number 2006), what has been less studied is what people who accept evolution think about the origins of Homo sapiens. Scholars of human origins are often unaware of what the science-literate public thinks about evolution.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Evaluating Evidence in Biological AnthropologyThe Strange and the Familiar, pp. 55 - 70Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019
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