As Bernard DeVoto once said of Margaret Mead: “The more anthropologists write about the United States, the less we believe what they say about Samoa.”Anthropologists are prone to write nonsense about their own country and it is not unnatural for people apply the old doctrine regarding witness testimony.
Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus i"False in one thing, false in everything", or , more generally, "If you lie about one thing, then we have to assume you might be willing to lie about everything." Broader still, and removing the moral issue of lying, if you aren't carefully accurate about one thing, how can we trust that you will be faithfully accurate about others.
An adage which, as it happens, ended up being true for Margaret Mead.
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