Why do modern anthropologists reject the idea that animism represents an inferior stage of human thought?

Modern anthropologists reject the 19th-century view that animism represents an inferior or "primitive" stage of human thought, characterizing that premise as fundamentally mistaken.1

Early scholars, such as Sir Edward Burnett Tylor, categorized animism as a "crude childlike natural philosophy" and an ancestral, inferior stage of cultural evolution that preceded more complex religious systems. However, contemporary scholarship views this as a biased misinterpretation. Since at least the mid-20th century, anthropologists have maintained that all human cultures and religions reflect a fully evolved human intelligence capable of complex thought.12

Rather than viewing these beliefs as simple or regressive, modern researchers recognize that the religious ideas found in tribal societies are sophisticated and uniquely suited to their specific cultural and natural environments. Anthropologists now emphasize that no historically given creed is inherently superior, and they reject the notion that any culture is less "evolved" than another based on its religious practices.123