Word: freeman
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What is so disturbing about the book is that it is clearly not just an anthropological work: Freeman is determined to prove that "Mead's presentation of Samoa as proving the insignificance of biology in the etiology of adolescent behavior is revealed as a false case." The book suffers from this pre-occupation; it would be a far stronger work if Freeman had simply concentrated on the Samoans as they...
...Freeman is most likely right that Mead portrayed young Samoans as far more permissive than they actually are. His explanation for this is that Mead's only source was what the teenage girls she was studying told her, and they probably exaggerated and lied to her both to tease her and out of shyness. Freeman also concludes that Mead was mistaken in believing that adolesence in Samoa is without trauma. He cites statistics showing that teenage delinquency in Samoa can run as much as ten times that of some western cultures, the peak year for a youth's first conviction...
...Freeman concludes his book asserting that the case of Samoa shows that neither biological nor cultural determinism is unacceptable on its own and that both must be considered in accounting for human behavior. He advocates the currently popular "view of human evolution in which the genetic and exogenetic are distinct but interacting parts of a single system." Freeman seems to believe that the old nature-nurture debate is over, but he is unfortunately mistaken. The opinion that the genes dictate and determine all continues to be expressed in psychology, evolutionary biology, and anthropology...
...Freeman himself should be wary, for he continues to subscribe to the belief that the human brain and body at birth are analogous to a computer fully equipped with programs and waiting only for experience to supply them with variables. In fact, recent studies have shown that the structure and development of both the brain and body are significantly affected by post-natal experience...
Unfortunately, the real loser in this book is neither biological nor cultural determinism, but Margaret Mead herself. Freeman ignores the fact that, to some degree, she and Boas were more interested in studying cultural variations themselves than deciding whether such variations meant that men were not bound by their genes. Worse, Freeman portrays Mead as a possessed and ignorant follower of Boas who was duped by her Samoan informants. When he spoke last month, Freeman voiced the opinion that, because of her involvement with Boas, Margaret Mead was "more sinned against that sinning." Freeman's own book, important...