Anthropology question that I need some help with...

I think this is what you are looking for.

 

/thread.

 

A couple of stabs:

1. Disagreement occurs because interpretation is required (GOOD because process is cautious)

2. Open disagreement resolved should end up with something closer to consensus-- or at least reduce the number of interpretations. (GOOD because of collaborative knowledge)

That will either get you started or help you figure out a direction in which you do not wish to proceed!

 

You're wasting your time studying fossils, son. We all know God placed them there 6000 years ago for us to find it today.

 

Go to your text book, look up taxonomy and taxonomic record in the index and go back to every page where it is mentioned and you should find your answer there.

The 2nd part is probably in the intro or first chapter of your textbook which usually start off with a definition of science and the scientific method. Somewhere in there the author probably even used the the phrase "good science" and "disagreements."

 

Well, for one thing, carbon dating is not always the most accurate process. And when all you can do is narrow a new fossil down to a *range* of several thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of years in some case, this leave behind a lot of guesswork, a lot of paleontology anthropology detective work, and finding anything definitive or conclusive is simply not going to happen. This therefore leaves things open to interpretation, people come up with pet theories, and when more than one person becomes convinced of more than one version of the possibilities, conflict will occur.

I would suggest a paleo anthropologist death match to decide the winner, and, ultimately, the truth.

 

Describe and explain why disagreement occurs

The obvious answer is that we have an extremely limited fossil record. Scientists have to heavily speculate to fill in the large holes in the fossil record. This type of speculation (aka wild ass guessing) leads to disagreement.

This may not be the answer that the question seeks.

 

Why can't they agree? (As already mentioned) because carbon dating only gets you so far. This puts you in a certain time frame, and gives you several reference species to work with. Past that, you have to rely on similarities between the other known species within the fossil record. Any given skeleton may have physical traits in common with multiple species. Which leads to differing opinions on which species the new one is more closely related to, therefore, where the new guy fits into the family tree.

Is this good or bad science? This is good science because it leads anthropologists to explore multiple avenues and theories, instead of taking one opinion and running with it.

 

This is just as difficult as DaDakota's one... but I can gander a guess at this one... I believe I have seen enough movies to give it a shot that's what she said:

Is it "Jurassic Park", starring Jeff Goldblum and some old guy who wants to entertain his grand kids and a couple of scientists?

 

i think in the grander scheme, the homind is a puzzle piece that has been missing in the theory of evolution puzzle, rc14 dating is faulty in the way that the room for error could be decades to thousands of years and this is one place where anthropology will always have disagreements,
as far as the puzzle piece you can believe what you want about evolution but the truth is it is only a theory and the desire to have the theory fullfilled has been artificially authenticated before check out the piltdown man, so when new evidence as critical as the hominid in which itself is still a theoritcal creature people will disagree mainly cause it means so much to the world of history, anthropology and science,

my 2 cents

 

Finals week?

 

REP'D.