In
The Alternative Introduction to Biological Anthropology
, Second Edition, author Jonathan Marks presents an innovative framework for thinking about the major issues in the field with fourteen original essays designed to correlate to the core chapters in standard textbooks. Each chapter draws on and complements—but does not reconstitute (except for the sake of clarity)—the major data and ideas presented in standard texts. Marks explores such topics as how we make sense of data about our origins, where our modern ideas come from, our inability to separate natural facts from cultural facts and values as we try to understand ourselves, and the social and political aspects of science as a culturally situated mental activity.