Question

What are the goals of anthropology? Discuss the problems as well as the benefits of anthropological study.

Answer 1

Answer:

Anthropology is the systematic study of how diverse the human species is. It aims to provide a holistic understanding of humankind that includes a four-field approach: cultural anthropology, physical or biological anthropology, archaeology, and linguistic anthropology.  Anthropology teaches you to question underlying assumptions about human life and the reasons for our cultural and biological diversity.  

Explanation:

Anthropology is a diverse field and it can involve research on evolutionary patterns in humans, remnants of material culture, living worldviews and lifeways, and the study of communication patterns and the meanings inherent to the use of language.  Among the benefits of anthropology are that it seeks to understand human life from a wide variety of perspectives using different methods and angles of research, from positivist and empirical interpretations using material evidence to interpretative perspectives that focus on meaning and symbols in ethnographic research. The disadvantages of anthropology are that it tends to focus on details and the specific differences between cultures and what makes cultural practices particular. It is thus more difficult to generalize about anthropological data on a wider social scale.