Re: Earthquake Shakes Southern England


"Jack Linthicum" <jacklinthicum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1177879122.794883.105220@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Apr 29, 4:22 pm, "La N" <nilita2004NOS...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Eugene Griessel" <eugene@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:4634ec2a.1169408@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> "La N"
<nilita2004NOS...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I thought that Eugene might have taken the bait re. the bare-breasted
Tahitian wimmin, but he proved me wrong ..%)

The damned missionaries got there long time ago and made the wahines
cover up...

And they had to go and do away with cannibalism too!

You know, for some reason, reading this reminded me of a book I read
several
times over many years ago because I found it so fascinating: Margaret
Mead's "Coming of Age in Samoa".

A question for the scientists of the group - particularly those into
anthropology - was this book / her research later debunked?

- ni

It was entirely a con job, she went in with somewhat pre-conceived
ideas and then either asked the questions that got her the "correct"
answers or ignored the ones she didn't like.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Mead


Hmmm .... some have called her an outright fake. Others still give cred to
her work ....

I remember years ago in the early days of the "world wide web" trying to get
some answers to this. There continues to be some interesting stuff out
there on her work, including this site:


From http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/mead/field-samoa.html
Afterward: Derek Freeman and Margaret Mead
In 1983, five years after Margaret Mead's death, Harvard University Press
published a book by Derek Freeman (1916-2001), an anthropology professor at
the Australian National University, which challenged the accuracy of Mead's
findings in Coming of Age in Samoa. The book, Margaret Mead and Samoa: The
Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth, received widespread media
attention. It became a prominent case study in the ongoing battle over the
relative importance of "nature versus nurture."

Freeman had corresponded with Mead during her lifetime and questioned her on
some of her methods and results in Samoa. He argued that Mead had erred in
her Samoan work and that she misunderstood the culture because she wanted to
provide her professor Franz Boas with information to demonstrate his view of
the importance of culture. Among other criticisms, Freeman argued that Mead
ignored violence in Samoan life, did not have a sufficient background in--or
give enough emphasis to--the influence of biology on behavior, did not spend
enough time in Samoa, and was not familiar enough with the Samoan language.
Freeman's charges did not go unchallenged. Other researchers have argued
that he overemphasized the violent and competitive aspects of Samoan life,
quoted Mead selectively, and studied a different part of Samoa at a later
time period. Freeman subsequently published other books and articles on
Mead's Samoan researches, most notably The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead
(1999). In that book Freeman argued that Mead had been lied to by two of her
female informants and thus came to erroneous conclusions about Samoan
culture and the sexual freedom of the girls. Freeman's claims were again
challenged by other researchers. Even after Freeman's death on July 6, 2001,
scholars continue to debate the issues raised by this controversy.



.

Relevant Pages