social sciences: fake sciences. hoax sciences.

can anyone prove anything in “culture”

all these books are just for bull-session

Of course I now regard Freeman’s assertions with far more reserve than before, but I am badly puzzled. I have no intention of pursuing this subject seriously myself, not because I regard anthropology as unworthy of interest, but simply for lack of time in the face of rival interests. However the argument as presented amounted, as far as I can see,to an attack on the attack, arguing that Freeman had taken selective data from an old woman and had based his biased ideas on her failing memory and possibly doubtful veracity.

This cuts both ways. Mead, as far as I can see, had done hardly better. Surely this is not the way that anthropology is conducted in general? In the disciplines in which I have been concerned, work of that apparent standard would not have been accepted in a first year student project. Unless it has been badly presented, it seems to have amounted to remastication of regurgitation. Pretty close to nauseatingly worthless.

Does anyone reading this have any idea why, if there is doubt about the reliability of material on either side, let alone both, no one seems to have made any effectual effort to gather in new and supplementary information?

I simply cannot believe that nothing of the kind has been done yet. But then if anything had indeed been done to settle the matter of sexual mores on Samoa, let alone the far more trivial question of a spat between anthropologists, then why is this matter is still being raked over in this partisan and tedious manner?

Arguably of course, I am taking the spat itself too lightly. Data and conclusions that might affect scientific received truths for the foreseeable future, are no trifles.

=====

Over…

Jon

Simplistic overstatement? Sure, but compared to what?

Steve began well with “Contrary to Professor Shankman, the memory lapses of the old Samoan woman do not prove that Derek Freeman “fooled us all” about an alleged hoax. I think Freeman is still correct and Mead was fooled by her willingness to believe the Samoan woman, whose later statements–when she had her memory–that she and her friend misled Mead still stand. I agree that Mead did not construct a deliberate hoax but was fooled by her preconceptions. She was a victim of self-deception, not an uncommon occurrence for humans.”
He then got into his own opinion on the rights of the theories at issue. This was unfortunate, because the fundamental error is in:
“In any case, Mead’s thesis is what is important here, not whether she was fooled or not. Is her thesis correct, that human “behavior is mostly the product of environment, not genes…”
As a sceptical but receptive reader I see Mead’s thesis as a rank red herring. I don’t care whether she was proposing or defending the cosmoogical soundness of Neanderthal dark matter string theories. What I do care about is the basis, development, and presentation of her theories. Oh, and perhaps, just a leeetle bit, the honesty of her work.
How did this exchange lapse into argument about innate components and flexibility of reproductive ethology, human or otherwise?
And how, how, how, did we get into how much nicer or nastier Freeman was than Mead, or otherwise?
Is this how we are supposed to approach the assessment of scientific evidence or argument?
Please pardon the four-letter words, but does anyone here have any ideas concerning the terms such as “Soft Sciences”?
Cheers,

Jon

Getting back to Mead v. Freeman–Mead was an extremely self-deceptive person. She believed in the reality of UFOs as alien spacecraft and similar things. She was not a skeptical person. She was also an observant, committed Christian, so she believed in life after death, virgin birth, creation of the universe by a deity, etc. That sounds self-deceptive to me.

Shankman and Mead’s statement: “relaxed sexual conduct of the native Samoans was the result of a radically different environment from the sexually stultifying environment of the Industrial West”

This is nonsense because human behavior is known to be the product of both the environment and genes; in some human behaviors the environment is “mostly” responsible, in others genes are mostly responsible; all behaviors are a mixture of the two. I disagree with the “blank slate” hypothesis and research in the last twenty years has shown this hypothesis to be incorrect.

In any case, Mead’s thesis is what is important here, not whether she was fooled or not. Is her thesis correct, that human “behavior is mostly the product of environment, not genes,” and that the “relaxed sexual conduct of the native Samoans was the result of a radically different environment from the sexually stultifying environment of the Industrial West?” Of course not. Today we would unhesitatingly state that these conclusions are nonsense. Mead certainly had other female Samoan informants, who perhaps gave her more accurate information than the two young women who misled her, but her conclusions about the cultural relativism of sex are still wrong.