[Leica] Margaret Mead's prevarications

[lrzeitlin at aol.com (lrzeitlin at aol.com)]

 According to anthropology professor Kluckhoen, when Margaret Mead visited 
Samoa, prior to writing "Coming of Age in Samoa," she was only 24 years old 
and small and young looking for her age. The Samoans didn't take this 
apparent adolescent seriously and fed her a pack of misinformation. She 
assumed that what?she received was factual and documented it in her 
writings, amplifying a bit here and there to make it more interesting. 
"Coming of Age in Samoa" was a best seller. It was not until more careful 
anthropologists checked the facts that she began to lose status in the 
academic community.?


It was tough for a woman to be taken seriously as a scientist in the 1930s. 
The Nobel Prize committee didn't believe that Marie Curie discovered radium 
either and wanted to award the prize to her husband, Pierre. It was finally 
awarded to both of them but he was the one who went to the podium to accept. 
In view of the scientific prevarications of today, Margaret Mead's 
misstatements are pretty small stuff.


Larry Z