Mead launched her career on this observation, and went on to enjoy great celebrity. Then along came Australian anthropologist Derek Freeman in the 1980s. He had spent decades living in Samoa, compared to Mead's six months, and he debunked her claims with force and vigor. In a pair of books, he argued that Samoans were nothing like the sexual free spirits Mead had described. He even tracked down an old lady named Fa'apua'a Fa'amu, who had served as one of Mead's two primary informants during Mead's field research.
Samoan girls are terrible liars when it comes to joking.
The American Anthropological Association even condemned him in a formal vote by its membership. Now that's an easy claim to double-check. The citations included the New York Times , Washington Post , Los Angeles Times , Chronicle of Higher Education , and The New Republic . I've spent a little bit of time over the years studying the Mead-Freeman dispute, and I think it's fair to say that Freeman makes some critically important claims against Mead, even though he's sometimes such an overzealous prosecutor he needlessly opens himself to questions of bias. Maybe I should start writing for The Nation .