No evidence offered relevant to points raised - response to article by Derek Freeman in this issue, p. 60

Derek Freeman is upset by criticisms of his "fateful hoaxing" theory, but if he had "honestly and conscientiously take[n] into account all of the relevant evidence," none of these criticisms would be necessary. Moreover, he claims that his book provides "extensive evidence published for the first time," but there is nothing new of substance in it that has not been published at least once over the past decade in his many renditions about the alleged hoaxing.

Before writing my article, I had seen an outline of a draft of his book and had read his various summaries of it. Since the outline of his book showed no appendix containing the Mead-Boas correspondence, and being in possession of the letters myself, I wrote to his publisher in March 1998 suggesting that all of them be included verbatim in an appendix (I even offered to help). When it was released, only some of these letters were included.

Although Mead's letter of March 14, 1926, is included in an appendix in Freeman's book, notably absent are seven letters spanning November 15, 1925, to April 7, 1926. These are crucial to truly understanding the progress of Mead's research. Freeman should have included all of them so that readers could evaluate all of the data upon which he is basing his claims.

Since he did include the March 14 letter, readers can see one of his many misrepresentations of Mead's research for themselves by comparing his text about the letter (pp. 141-145) with some of its actual wording (p. 231, lines 14-17). They will find in his text that he does not acknowledge Mead writing that the family did attempt to curb adolescent sexual activity, presumably because this contradicts his much-repeated "free-love" thesis that Mead was hoaxed into believing "that Samoa is a place where 'the community' does not attempt to 'curb' the sexual activity of adolescents" (p. 142).

In his rebuttal, Freeman does not offer any evidence relevant to the points I raise in my article. Instead, he claims that because of the way I cite evidence from Orans's book (and he disagrees with Orans), I am guilty of "irresponsible scholarship." First, I did not rely solely on Orans's book in assessing Mead's letters, because I have copies myself. Second, I do not have to agree with every point made in a source in order to "responsibly" cite it. And, third, Orans does not say that Mead fabricated data, but that she drew misleading conclusions from her data. In my article I also wrote that Mead made some misleading generalizations, in accord with Orans.

For the benefit of those who do not have access to the letters exchanged between Mead and Boas, I plan to publish a full account of all of them and their significance for Freeman's theory. This will show that Mead: (1) had essentially completed her research on Samoan sexual mores before the alleged hoaxing about those mores, (2) had an intimate knowledge of many of her informants (also before her alleged hoaxing), (3) completed to her satisfaction the "special investigation" of her informants' sexual behavior (and reported these results in Coming of Age in Samoa) (Mead, 1973, p. 285), and (4) left Samoa on a revised schedule she had worked out with Boas several months before the alleged hoaxing. Science does indeed require that all of the relevant evidence be taken into account, and I intend to make sure that this is done.

James Cote Department of Sociology University of Western Ontario London, Ontario N6A 5C2 Canada

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