4. The development of genetics (mid-1900's)

Of all the scientific developments of the 1900's, the emergence of genetics and its explanations of genetic structure and function will have the greatest effect on human life. For anthropology, as well as for the other life sciences and medicine, genetics provided the underlying mechanisms that explain how evolution operates.

The discovery of DNA in 1953 further advanced our understanding of those mechanisms whose function has resulted in the evolutionary development of modern human beings from earlier creatures with very different patterns of biology and behavior. The successful extraction of DNA from a human fossil in 1997 was the initial step in what will be a profound expansion in our understanding of the history of our species.

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Alan E. Mann is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. His Top 10 list reviews the 1900's in a general historical light and shows how the major events affected the work and chief concerns of anthropologists. He generally calls attention to broad movements rather than single momentous events. He points to the rapid population growth during the 1900's and reveals why some anthropologists link this trend to the end of human evolution.

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The effects of World War II (1939-1945) on theories of race
2. Social change caused by World War I (1914-1918)
3. The increase in world population (throughout the 1900's)
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The development of genetics (mid-1900's)
5. Gaining understanding of the atomic structure of matter (middle to late 1900's)
6. The development of antibiotics (middle to late 1900's)
7. The impact of automobile and airplane travel (throughout the 1900's)
8. The rise of the computer-based Information Age (middle to late 1900's)
9. The development of effective and safe methods of birth control (mid-1900's)
10. Accepting the theory of continental drift (late 1900's)