Applying to anthropology with MA in philosophy?

[sigmundcorneliusfreud]

I'm planning on a change of field, so I would appreciate thoughts on how reasonable this is and on anything I can do now to improve my chances.

 

I'm currently finishing my first year in an MA program in philosophy. I'm currently studying philosophy of science, mainly biology and social sciences, and plan to write my thesis on some topic in philosophy of biology; I'd like to switch to anthropology to study human and primate evolution. I'm currently working on a project in my free time on the evolution of language, involving some literature from primatology on great ape communication. I'm hoping to start submitting this to conferences before I apply in the fall. In any case, I'm hoping to use that to market myself; I'll be applying for evolutionary/biological anthropology and primatology, so I'm hoping a paper on the evolution of great ape communication will be a reasonable writing sample (?).

 

This year I have been a TA, and I am also involved in my department's journal. Next year I have a fellowship to work on some interdisciplinary projects unrelated to philosophy. I've also presented work at two conferences this year.

 

GRE: 170 verbal, 168 quantitative, 5.0 writing

 

Concerns:

• I don't have any formal background in anthropology, other than a gen-ed course I took as an undergrad, though I've encountered issues from anthropology in my philosophical work. Would it make a difference if I were able to take an anthropology class this fall?
• I also don't have much recent quantitative background; I took up to calculus 3 as an undergrad and haven't taken any math since, but I encounter math sometimes in philosophy of biology. Is this a huge problem, or is it possible to spin this on my SoP to sound reasonable?
• I've heard mixed opinions about how bad it looks to leave a PhD program or to switch fields, so I'd appreciate any thoughts on my particular situation.