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Even from the earliest discussions regarding science in anthropology, it has always been evident that a degree of confusion encircles what science means in the context of anthropology (Peregrine, 2012: 593). Wolf argues that anthropology should be considered a natural science, relating to the organisation and function of natural phenomena, and a humanistic discipline, relating to the organisation and function of the human mind (Wolf, 1963: 13). Science in anthropology was first defined by Harris in 1979 as "an epistemology which seeks to restrict fields of inquiry to events, entities and relationships that are knowable by means of explicit, logico-empirical, inductive-deductive, quantifiable public procedures subject to replication by independent observers" (Harris, 1979:27). Peregrine, however, notes that Harris' definition is inherently narrow and does not encompass the majority of anthropological research, thus by Harris' definition and Peregrine's analysis it can be deduced that anthropology cannot be considered a scientific discipline (Peregrine, 2012: 593). .
Hickman argues that the removal of science from the mission statement of the AAA was counterproductive in terms of the AAA's objectives, stating that the move could threaten the legitimacy of anthropology as a discipline to other fields (Hickman, 2010:1). Hickman regards science in broader terms than Carrithers, as "a disciplined, systematic inquiry that attempts some degree of transparency in staking claims about the world, regardless of the relative social constructedness of those worlds" (Hickman, 2010:2). Anthropology clearly corroborates with this definition and can thus be considered a science by Hickman's definition. Hickman further insinuates that the citation of evidence to back up an individual's interpretation is both intrinsic to anthropology as a discipline and science as a whole (Hickman, 2010:2). Kluckhorn also considers anthropology to be a science, arguing that anthropology must be scientific as it deals with different phenomena and the interactions between them (Kluckhorn, 1959:512).
