Anthropology as a science is a fairly recent discipline in the scheme of world history, but ever since mankind has formed societies and cultures, there have been people observing and commenting upon their societies as well as those of their neighbors.

Explorers, crusaders, and others who were boldly going where no one had gone before were regularly finding strange new worlds and new civilizations in their travels. From the ancient seafaring peoples to Marco Polo to Christopher Columbus and those that followed him to the New World, any explorer who made observations and wrote about their travels was an anthropologist of sorts.

Modern anthropology is, of course, a more systematic science with a tested and trustworthy methodology that examines humanity in all its glorious diversity of cultures and beliefs. Anthropology seeks to gain an understanding of the differences in civilizations as well as discovering many surprising similarities, thus enriching our understanding of ourselves.

Anthropology can be broken down into the study of three main areas: society, culture, and evolution. Society and culture are often interchangeable expressions, though in the strict sense, culture would be the interactions and behavior patterns of a more complex society.

Ethnocentrism

Charles Darwin is the most famous proponent of the theory of evolution. His book, On the Origin of Species, published in 1859, proposed the theory of natural selection. British philosopher Herbert Spencer put his spin on the evolutionary theory, applying it to humanity and calling it survival of the fittest. This form of social Darwinism was often used to justify colonialism and the xenophobic European feelings of superiority.

This flaw in past anthropological studies is called ethnocentrism. This is the belief that your society is better than the one you are studying. A nineteenth-century European anthropologist confronting a primitive Polynesian tribe often found them inferior to himself and the world from which he came, thus his findings were replete with cultural biases. Civilization was associated with the trappings of the Industrial Age, and it was inconceivable that these laid-back beachcombers may be on to something.

Ethnocentrism was the prevailing anthropological view for many years and it justified an inflated sense of European pre-eminence and rationalized a multitude of sins.

Cultural Relativism

An influential anthropologist who sought to make anthropology more respectable was Franz Boas. He believed in fieldwork, living among the civilization you were studying for an extended period of time. He also rejected the ethnocentric and racist views of many of his predecessors. He trained a whole generation of anthropologists, and his work was the basis for the practice of cultural relativism.

The contemporary anthropologist, now keenly aware of the analytic flaws and prejudices of previous anthropologists, strives not to judge the foreign civilizations they study. What works in Des Moines may not work in the Amazon, but that does not make one inferior to the other. Celebrating diversity is the watchword of modern anthropology. Comparisons can certainly be made, but judgments are to be avoided.