[ExI] Margaret Mead controversy

[BillK]

Quote:
Margaret Mead's most famous book, 1928's "Coming of Age in Samoa,"
portrayed an idyllic, non-Western society, free of much sexual
restraint, in which adolescence was relatively easy.

Derek Freeman, an Australian anthropologist, wrote two books arguing
that Mead was wrong and launched a heated public debate about her
work.

To Freeman, the issue was larger than the accuracy of "Coming of Age
in Samoa." As he saw it, Mead's book was pivotal in arguing that
humans' cultural environment -- or "nurture" -- could mold them as
much or more than their biological predispositions -- or "nature."

<http://www.colorado.edu/news/r/561640083a56be65b21ca532b3de3453.html>

Paul Shankman, a University of Colorado professor of anthropology, has
spent years studying the controversy and has uncovered new evidence
that Freeman's fierce criticism of Mead contained fundamental flaws.

"Freeman told a good story. It was a story people wanted to hear, that
they wanted to believe," Shankman said. "Unfortunately, that's all it
was: a good story."

Shankman has exhumed data that deeply undercut Freeman's case. His
research, partly based on a probe of Freeman's archives, opened after
his death, revealed that Freeman "cherry picked" evidence that
supported his thesis and ignored evidence that contradicted it.

Shankman dissects the controversy in "The Trashing of Margaret Mead:
Anatomy of an Anthropological Controversy," a book published in
November by the University of Wisconsin Press.

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And from Wikipedia:
In 1983, five years after Mead had died, New Zealand anthropologist
Derek Freeman published Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and
Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth, in which he challenged Mead's
major findings about sexuality in Samoan society, citing statements of
her surviving informants' claiming that she had coaxed them into
giving her the answers she wanted. After years of discussion, many
anthropologists concluded that Mead's account is for the most part
reliable, and most published accounts of the debate have also raised
serious questions about Freeman's critique.[17]

17.  See Appell 1984, Brady 1991, Feinberg 1988, Leacock 1988, Levy
1984, Marshall 1993, Nardi 1984, Patience and Smith 1986, Paxman 1988,
Scheper-Hughes 1984, Shankman 1996, Young and Juan 1985, and Shankman
2009.
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Basically it is the nurture versus nature debate all over again.

Keith (like Freeman) tends towards nature side, that humans behave
more as genetics have programmed them to.

I tend more towards the nurture side, that humans behave more as their
culture programs them to.

Obviously it is all a big mish-mash with parts of both points of view
being correct at different times and circumstances.

But the nurture side is the whole point of the history of
civilization, i.e. trying to control the animal instincts of humans to
build a better life.
Keith's support of the idea that genetic programming takes precedence
is what leads him to his rather depressing view of the future course
of humanity. But civilization has been controlling the human genetic
impulses (to a greater or lesser extent) for thousands of years.  So I
think there is still hope for humanity.


BillK