Question

Physical anthropologists are only concerned with the past evolutionary development of the human animal and the biological variations with the species that occurred in the past.
a. True
b. False

Answer 1

Anthropology is a branch of social science that deals with the study of human societies, culture and their development. It has five major fields: physical (biological) anthropology, cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, applied anthropology and archeology.

Physical anthropology is an exploration of the origin, differences, diversities and distributions of humans. It has the following sub-branches:

1. Primatology or the study of primates, since man belongs to the order of primates in the Animal Kingdom. 

2. Ethnology or the study of human diversities based from the different races which attempts to explain the nature, formation and differentiation of the racial groups.

3. Human biology that deals with the concrete biological principles and concepts of man.

4. Palaeoanthropology which deals with the documentation of biological history of mankind.

5. Human genetics which deals with the inherited characters and genetic relations between parents and offsprings.

6. Nutritional anthropology which attempts to discuss the matter related with the nutritional perspective of human beings in relation to their subsequent growth and development.

7. Medical anthropology that study the different patterns of diseases and their impact on human societies.

8. Physiological anthropology is the study of the internal organs of the human body to understand their bio-chemical composition.

9. Forensic anthropology concerns the study of the skeletal structure of hominids and non-hominids to understand the similarities and differences in their body parts.

10. Dental anthropology deals with the study of teeth and its patterns to determine the food habit and human evolution, growth, body morphology and genetic features.

11. Anthropometry that studies the gradual human development through eveolution.

12. Ergonomy or the study of the correlation between the static body dimension, which is important to understand why many groups of people have different body sizes.

13. Demography or the science of population, which deals with fertility and mortality.

14. Ethology or the science of animal behavior.

Based on these sub-branches it shows that physical anthropology also concerns the present-day evolutionary development and biological variations.Thus, the answer is false.