"Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" wrote:
> Neal Blaikie wrote:
> >
> > multiple choice setup, neither answer would be completely accurate, and I
> > don't think too many serious social scientists would call Mead a screwup
> > because later generations have replaced her theories with ones that work
> > better. This isn't how science works. Whether she turns out to be right or
> > not, her significance is based on her contributions to an ongoing body of
> > work.
>
> Such an answer (if supplied by a social scientist) is one that I would
> rate as indicating a continuing problem.
How so? Please enlighten us.
> Margaret Mead did not make a
> small improvement that was later replaced by a large improvement. She
> made a horrendous mistake and screwed up the entire field of anthropology
> for decades.
This is a gross overstatement, and suggests you may be ignorant of the vast
body of anthropological work that has nothing to do with Mead and is not
influenced by her. No one in the field has ever held her up as some sort of
icon or queen bee (or even as anthropology's Einstein), so to argue against
this is pointless. You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but you're
simply wrong.
Neal Blaikie
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 10:00:04 MDT