21) The following appeared in an article written by Dr. Karp, an anthropologist.Twenty years ago, Dr. Field, a noted anthropologist, visited the island of Tertia and concluded from his observations that children in Tertia were reared by an entire village

Dr Karp avers that the research result of Dr Field and his observation-centered approach was invalid and therefore should be replaced by the interview-centered method of his team. However, to logically reach his conclusion, more evidences are needed.

The first evidence we have to check is whether the comparing conditions of the two researches have changed or not. Since Dr. Field visited the island of Tertia twenty years ago, it is vital to determine that the condition of what they discussed has not largely changed or the claim of Dr. Karp would be meaningless. If children in Tertia were reared by entire village twenty years ago, however, ten years after Dr. Field's visit, residents in Tertia found that it was more preferable for each family to rear their own children so that children were no longer reared by whole village. Thus, the conclusion Dr. Field made did not counter with the reality, while it is due to the change of the village that made the conclusion invalid. But this cannot prove the error of Dr. Field's conclusion and his research method.

Dr. Karp says that their interviews with children living in the group of islands that includes Tertia show that children there spend much more time talking about their biological parents. This evidence could not fully support his point in twofold. On one hand, we have to know that how many children they interviewed are from the island of Tertia? If they interviewed ten villages and the condition of Tertia was not similar with the other nine island, the credits of his survey is weakened. If evidences could prove that their target interviews could represent the conditions of Tertia, it strengthen his arguement. On the other hand, we also need to know the specific contents of what children were talking. They could probably only refer to the name of their biological parents but this has little strength to prove that they were reared by their biological parents rather than the entire village. Without the evidence of their conversation, it is rather rash to conclude that they were not reared by the entire village.

In addition, even though the conclusion of Dr. Karp is invalid, it is also too bold to ascertain that observation-centered approach is invalid while interview-centered method is more proper. Evidences concerning the contents and usefulness of both methods should be presented to make this comparison. Island cultures could involve many various aspects and unless evidences could prove that interview-centered method could be accurate in most of these aspects of research, to aver that interview-centered approach are superior could be problematic.

In conclusion, more evidences are required if we are to determine the accuracy of Dr. Karp's research and the claim of Dr. Field and his method.