Is case anyone is curious I got this less than reassuring response from the author, Sam Kean:
"The bit about Mao's regime allowing incest came from a book called "Hungry Ghost", around page 69. It's a brief reference from a doctor who worked under the regime. But quite spooky." "The Hungry Ghost" gets less than glowing endorsement from a number of other writers if Wikipedia is to be believed: "The book attracted criticism from reviewers for its research and analysis. Paul Monk compared Hungry Ghosts to the work of Robert Conquest in his book Harvest of Sorrow (1986), which covered famine in the Soviet Union caused by agricultural reforms and collectivization. However, his review in The China Journal was highly critical of Hungry Ghosts. He felt that Becker had bypassed "the Soviet agrarian debate of the 1920s," and that his treatment of cannibalism in China was "lurid".[31] Monk argued that Becker was insufficiently skeptical of claims about the famine, and found that took away from the book's underlying argument that "it was the tendency to exaggerate and play fast and loose with statistics in the interest of propaganda which helped to bring about the famine itself."[31] Sinologist Frederick Teiwes was strongly critical of the research and presentation in Hungry Ghosts. He called the book "maddeningly deficient in a number of important respects," said that Becker's "assertions are often unsourced," and called the book's infrequent footnotes "essentially unusable"; despite these critiques, he ultimately concluded that the book "provides a long overdue and salutary lesson for all concerned."[32] Economist Carl Riskin felt that there were inaccuracies within the book – both exaggerations and plain factual errors – and echoed the issues Teiwes had with poorly-documented sources.[33] Political scientist Andrew J. Nathan described Becker's presentation of the famine for a Western audience as useful, but argued that Becker was careless with his sources.[17] Although sinologist Robert Ash called the book "well-researched", he compared it unfavorably to Calamity and Reform in China (1996) by Dali L. Yang, stating that Yang's analysis offered superior insights.[23] Some took issue with specific claims, such as American historian Paul G. Pickowicz, who wrote in The Wall Street Journal that he disagreed with Becker's claim that "even now in the West the famine is still not accepted as a historical event.[15] Dirk Schmidt, reviewing for China Information, wrote that Becker "tends to oversimplify the intra-elite aspects of the [Great Leap Forward]."[18] Historian and political economist Songlin Yang disputed Becker's claims that Mao "ignored the famine," noting State's Council reports from 1959 which indicated that Mao had pressed for hunger relief in a number of provinces.[34]" So "a brief reference from a doctor" who was presumably hostile, and we're supposed to believe China has masses of birth defects. I'm more inclined to believe the Marriage Laws . . . Comradely, John On Tue, 16 Jan 2024, 11:58 hari kumar, <[email protected]> wrote: > FWIW: A recent review on the modern science of 'epigenetics' and the > relationship to 'Lysenkoism'; with a pretty recent biological referencing. > > https://www.marxists.org/subject/science/essays/Kumar_Reductionism_In_Science_Politics.pdf > H > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#28592): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/28592 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/103732259/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
