The Comparative Approach in Evolutionary Anthropology and Biology
The Comparative Approach in Evolutionary Anthropology and Biology
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进化人类学和生物学的比较方法
DOI：
10.7208/chicago/9780226090009.001.0001
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发表时间：
2011
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
C. Nunn
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
C. Nunn
比较是进化人类学的基础。例如，当科学家研究黑猩猩的认知时，他们将黑猩猩在认知任务上的表现与人类儿童在相同任务上的表现进行了比较。当发现新的化石时，例如弗洛雷斯的小人化石，科学家们会将这些遗骸与其他化石和当代人类进行比较。比较提供了一种对特征进化作出一般推断的方法，长期以来一直是努力了解生物和文化多样性的基石。对化石遗骸、活物种或人类种群的个别研究是比较研究中的基本分析单位；将这些因素纳入更广泛的比较框架中，可以创建一种测试适应性假设和产生新假设的方法。通过这本书，查尔斯·L·纳恩打算确保进化人类学家和生物学家拥有实现比较研究潜力的工具。Nunn对进化人类学在过去和现在的研究中的比较基础进行了广泛的调查，包括对动物行为、生物多样性、语言进化、异速生长和跨文化变异的研究。他还指出了未来的方向，探索了新的基于系统发育的比较方法，并为希望将这些新方法纳入他们的研究的科学家提供了一本指导手册。
Comparison is fundamental to evolutionary anthropology. When scientists study chimpanzee cognition, for example, they compare chimp performance on cognitive tasks to the performance of human children on the same tasks. And when new fossils are found, such as those of the tiny humans of Flores, scientists compare these remains to other fossils and contemporary humans. Comparison provides a way to draw general inferences about the evolution of traits and has long been the cornerstone of efforts to understand biological and cultural diversity. Individual studies of fossilized remains, living species, or human populations are the essential units of analysis in a comparative study; bringing these elements into a broader comparative framework creates a means of testing adaptive hypotheses and generating new ones. With this book, Charles L. Nunn intends to ensure that evolutionary anthropologists and organismal biologists have the tools to realize the potential of comparative research. Nunn provides a wide-ranging investigation of the comparative foundations of evolutionary anthropology in past and present research, including studies of animal behavior, biodiversity, linguistic evolution, allometry, and cross-cultural variation. He also points the way to the future, exploring the new phylogeny-based comparative approaches and offering a how-to manual for scientists who wish to incorporate these new methods into their research.