Critical Investigation on Influences from Natural Science Theories and Ideas in Development of the Classical Anthropology

Abstract

Anthropology has developed approximately over the two hundred years in the western world into separate new discipline of its own. Many theories have been formulated by classical anthropologist to explain and to study concepts of culture and human behavior. The sub-discipline, cultural anthropology emerged during the 19th century in the British then in USA. This paper presents critical investigation on to the major influences from natural science and related ideologies in the process of development of cultural anthropological theories to study concepts of culture. The historical comparative method was adopted for the said investigation. According to findings of the completed investigation, it is with enough evidences that reveal the magnitudes of the impact from natural science ideologies to develop the theories of classical anthropology. It was possible to conclude this paper with that there was enormous trend to use empirical approaches also to study human cultures and related behaviors from early ear of the discipline, anthropology, mainly due to the fact that most anthropologists have borrowed ideas from natural science in formulation of anthropological theories.