Cited: Durrenberger‚ E. Paul. “Are Ethnographies “Just So” Stories?” Faces of Anthropology: A Reader for the 21st Century. Ed. Kevin A. Rafferty‚ Dorothy Chinwe Ukaegbu. Upper Saddle River‚ New Jersey: Pearson Ed‚ Inc. ‚ 2007. 74-81. Print. Harris‚ Marvin. Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture. New York: Vintage Books‚ Random House‚ 1980. Print. Isajiw‚ Wsevolod W. Causation and Functionalism in Sociology. London: Routledge 1968. PDF‚ retrieved via http://books.google.com
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Marvin Harris’s extensive research into the ancient world and the peoples who lived in it give an insightful perspective of the modern world. Though this work of non-fiction does not focus on a central thesis‚ its plethora of information makes one easy to extract: that human nature is‚ although many would like to deny it‚ inherently competitive‚ and therefore violent. Although heavily focused in on the Aztecs‚ Harris proves that across all walks of life that human nature is to be inherently violent
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Looking at taboo in a modern society‚ Marvin Harris gives an interesting example of the application of cultural materialism to the Hindu taboo against eating beef.7 5 Kelly Rothenberg‚ "Tattooed People as Taboo Figures in Modern Society‚" 1996‚ BME/Psyber City‚ 18 Jan. 2005 . 6 Sigmund Freud‚ Totem and Taboo (New York: Random‚ 1918) 17. 7 Marvin Harris‚ "The Cultural Ecology of India’s Sacred Cattle‚" Current Anthropology 1992‚ 7:51-66‚ qtd
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TABOOS A food taboo is a prohibition against consuming certain foods. The term was introduced in the anthropological literature in the second half of the nineteenth century. In the field of food and nutrition‚ food taboos are not necessarily connected with magical‚ religious‚ or cultural differences. Some nutritionists prefer to speak of "food avoidance” instead of something as taboo. Food is a culturally specific concept. In general‚ anything can function as food if it is not immediately toxic
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used among antievolutionary scholars‚ but “Are these criticisms valid?”. Sanderson uses Marvin Harris’s critique in response to the validity of the antievolutionary criticism. Harris states that the comparative method used by classical evolutionists was “in principle sound”‚ but there must be a distinction between its appropriate usage and the abuses of evolutionism by nineteenth-century evolutionists. Harris states that classical evolutionists often undervalued the diversity in ancient societies
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SOCI315 QUIZ INFORMATION Quiz 2 Week 4 Part 1 of 1 - 50.0 Points Question 1 of 20 2.5 Points Dr. Marvin Harris believes that people do cultural things for A.primarily practical reasons B.primarily traditional reasons C.primarily religious reasons D.All of the above E.Only b and c Answer Key: A Question 2 of 20 2.5 Points Muslim and Jewish dietary laws are very similar. The most likely theory is: A.they are spiritually and doctrinally very close B.they both arose
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If one were to ask whether early human societies could have existed without religion‚ the answer would be a resounding no. Their collective knowledge was simply not considerable enough to explain the pertinent questions about life that faced them everyday. It’s human nature to seek answers to the unknown‚ and with each generation the human race is becoming exponentially more intelligent; able to explain more about our world with each new discovery. Although religion was an essential institution in
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Marvin Harris was an anthropologist who played a significant role in the development of cultural materialism. He was the first to propose this theory‚ saying‚ among many things‚ that the primary means by which a society takes advantage of its environment can
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article Marvin Harris described how the pigment of our skin originates where we live around the equator. If someone lives around the equator they have high risk of getting rickets‚ or osteomalacia. For example‚ if someone was light skinned living in Australia your chances of getting melanoma is high. The reason the risk is high for light pigmented skin living in Australia‚ is because many of them wear little clothing and the pigment of their skin is not meant to live there. In the essay Harris clearly
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INTRODUCTION On this assignment will be dealing with families‚ it will describing the two types of family that are found within families. A family is a group of people who share a close relationship ‚a unit typically(or traditionally ) composed of mated couple and their dependent children in co-residence .Families create generations -each of which gain in maturity and self sufficiency such as to create and provide for
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