3 ms·

>In Samoa, she had found a society whose looser sexual mores she came to view as a challenge to rigid Western norms Did she? She claimed she found wild (and we

>In Samoa, she had found a society whose looser sexual mores she came to view as a challenge to rigid Western norms Did she? She claimed she found wild (and weird) sexual life of Samoans but her findings were never succesfully verified, or supported (including by Samoans themselves). By now it's quite clear that she was either a victim of a prank, or simply faked interviews. It's both sad and funny that it appeared so embarassing to rollback all the pseudoscientific bs which grew from what is essentially a description of fictional world that plenty of people who claim to be science-lovers, or even scientists continue to refer to the work as if it is something fundamental and correct

kragen 2y ago
there's a summary of the controversy in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coming_of_Age_in_Samoa#The_Mead%E2%80%93Freeman_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coming_of_Age_in_Samoa#The_Mea... which makes it quite clear that absolutely nothing is quite clear
- broken-kebab 2y ago
  I can only encourage everyone to read it with enough attention. Weeding out from this incredibly lengthy text all attempts of character killing of the first public debunker, lame claims such as "Dr.X thinks the report was generally correct" (with not a single point provided), unrelated statements such as that some of Mead's ideas maybe right because of completely different research by different people in different place), we are left with the fact that there's no, zero, none evidence to support factual correctness of Ms.Mead's Samoan research on sexual behavior. And to deal with it her supporters reiterate the same argument in different forms - that there's a mystical conspiracy of silence on the island, i.e. Mead was told truth, but somehow everyone else both before, and after was not. It's absolutely ridiculous as we are talking about modern times, and society numerous enough to have internal political divides, and by that time already well-connected with outside world including intermarrying, and people of varying origins living their whole lives there, not to forget it was never isolated within Oceania. Oh, and there's also an argument that we shouldn't judge her because she "followed interpretative approach", and her report "is not falsifiable". This one can make sense, but it's just another way to say she was a fiction writer sold as a scientist.

kragen 2y ago

there's a summary of the controversy in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coming_of_Age_in_Samoa#The_Mead%E2%80%93Freeman_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coming_of_Age_in_Samoa#The_Mea... which makes it quite clear that absolutely nothing is quite clear

broken-kebab 2y ago
I can only encourage everyone to read it with enough attention. Weeding out from this incredibly lengthy text all attempts of character killing of the first public debunker, lame claims such as "Dr.X thinks the report was generally correct" (with not a single point provided), unrelated statements such as that some of Mead's ideas maybe right because of completely different research by different people in different place), we are left with the fact that there's no, zero, none evidence to support factual correctness of Ms.Mead's Samoan research on sexual behavior. And to deal with it her supporters reiterate the same argument in different forms - that there's a mystical conspiracy of silence on the island, i.e. Mead was told truth, but somehow everyone else both before, and after was not. It's absolutely ridiculous as we are talking about modern times, and society numerous enough to have internal political divides, and by that time already well-connected with outside world including intermarrying, and people of varying origins living their whole lives there, not to forget it was never isolated within Oceania. Oh, and there's also an argument that we shouldn't judge her because she "followed interpretative approach", and her report "is not falsifiable". This one can make sense, but it's just another way to say she was a fiction writer sold as a scientist.