The Mead/Freeman Controversy is Over: A Retrospect

Seventeen years after Derek Freeman launched his bid to reform anthropology by refuting the ostensible key text of Boasian anthropology, the situation remains at stalemate, with Freeman claiming ungainsayable evidence for closure, whereas his critics claim that his own refutation has been refuted. But no group of anthropologists espouses Freeman's interactionist paradigm, and no studies in anthropological method written since the commencement of the controversy recognize it as a significant contribution to the field. I argue that the Freeman reform of anthropology has no progeny because its basic game plan is not in alignment with the anthropological problem-set that he would reform. Several key examples of misalignment are discussed, including the hoaxing hypothesis.