For those interested, I am sharing with you several postings from the
evolutionary-psychology discussion group.
Stephen
----- Original Message -----
From: "ScipolicyNews" <[log in to unmask]>
To: "Gene Anderson" <[log in to unmask]>;
<[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2000 11:07 PM
Subject: Re: [evol-psych] Margaret Mead and enlightenment
I met Margaret Mead in the 1970's at an American Associan for the
Advancement of Science meeting in Philadelphia. I had an opportunity to chat
with her a bit after her presentation. She was affiable, interesting, a
pureist, quite open, and charming.
From my discussion with her, I interpret her manipulations of hoaxes that
Gene Anderson describes may have contributed to her goal of enlightenment
and the furtherance of life. Let me explain...
I asked her for her rationale for Western intervention in the lives of
primitive peoples. Since their societies were pure and stable, why introduce
them to Western culture and science/technology and all the problems that go
with them? "Why not just leave the societies alone?"
She explained that in every case where such intervention occurred, the
people were exposed to better medical care, better personal hygiene,
education, and better standard of living. This resulted in more of life.
Her message is the classical rational for the advancement of science and
reason. She represented such norms, indeed.
In recent years, primitive society intervention and applied science and
technology in general are viewed as normative and socially constructed.
Today, some ask whether Margaret Meade's work was destructive of nature.
The same question be asked about modern science generally. Such questions
challange the rationale for having science at all.
John Locke argued that the advancement of reason and the freedom to live
life to the fullest are natural rights. In the modern enlightenment, science
and technology control and harness nature. It is an open ended process.
Thus, Margaret Meade's work is a milestone. Her legacy is the furtherance
of
universal enlightenment and reason.
Best wishes,
Stephen Miles Sacks, Ph.D.,
Editor and Publisher
Scipolicy-The Journal of Science and Health Policy www.Scipolicy.net
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Gene Anderson" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <>
> Sent: Monday, September 25, 2000 1:07 PM
> Subject: [evol-psych] Margaret Mead and such
>
>
> > The real Margaret Mead story is interesting. My colleague Martin Orans
> > (who has done long, detailed field work in Samoa) got at her field
notes.
> > Turns out she was not hoaxed or fooled. She got all the negative stuff,
> > and saw through the "fibs" of some of her informants. She chose to
> > downplay this and project the paradise image. Actually, a close read of
> > COMING OF AGE IN SAMOA does betray a good deal of disconfirming lore
> > creeping through. But, if anyone perpetrated a "hoax," it was Mead, at
> > least as much as any Samoans. I suspect she did this out of excessive
> > youthful romanticism rather than a deliberate desire to deceive everyone
> or
> > push an agenda, but that case remains open. It has also been established
> > that Boas did NOT really get suckered, or adopt her views very
seriously.
> > Plenty of other anthropologists did, though, with some unfortunate
> results.
> > Freeman may exaggerate them, but they are there. (Incidentally, the
> > consensus among Samoanists is that Freeman exaggerates the dark side of
> > Samoan culture, just as Mead exaggerated the light side. I am not
> > competent to judge this one.)
> > This is very different from the Chagnon case. Mead was a green kid at
the
> > time, did only a few months' field work, and spent a lot of that living
> > with Anglo missionaries. Chagnon has spent years in the field and is a
> > highly-trained veteran fieldworker who lived in the villages. No
> > comparison as to data quality. Chagnon may not be perfect but he does
the
> > work. (And, no, anthro isn't astrophysics, but it isn't easy either;
good
> > field work is an incredibly difficult, knowledge-intensive,
> > methodology-driven project.)
> > Where there IS a comparison is in the way anthropologists tend to be
> > uncritical about sources. The field has a long history of uncritically
> > accepting Person A, then totally rejecting Person A at the first whiff
of
> > criticism. Anthropologists are also very quick to invent conspiracies
and
> > political agendas, when simple mistakes and foolishness are all that
> really
> > happened. Any good historian is trained to evaluate sources--not assume
> > anybody is 100% right or 100% wrong. Anthropologists learn to evaluate
> > field consultants this way, but they sometimes get credulous about
> > published (and even emailed) things.
> > There was, for instance, the famous Tepoztlan case. Robert Redfield
> > studied Tepoztlan in the 1920s and found it a nice place. His student
> > Oscar Lewis went back in the 1930s and found it a rough, depressing
place.
> > So the field still claims this is because Redfield was too optimistic
and
> > Lewis too cynical. Actually, the main thing was that Tepoztlan was a
big
> > winner in the Revolution and was on a real roll in the 1920s, but the
> > Depression absolutely flattened the place. It was Tepoztlan that
changed.
> > I have seen the same thing happen in Chunhuhub, my field work site in
> > Mexico--just the one of me (no more cynical in 1996 than in 1991) found
> the
> > same changes from 1991 (rich, good year) to 1996 (after the Mexican
> > depression of 93-94 and a huge hurricane). I felt like both Redfield and
> > Lewis (except that I can't write as well as they do).
> > best--Gene Anderson
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> > Beyond Natural Selection
> > http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262731029/darwinanddarwini/
> > Evolutionary Psychology Archive: 7000+ Items
> > http://www.egroups.com/messages/evolutionary-psychology
> >
>
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