It took almost twenty-five years of brooding over observations in the laboratory, Mayan huts, and American homes, as well as reflection on writing in anthropology, philosophy, and history, to release me from the dogma I had been taught at Yale. The ideas indoctrinated during graduate training can limit the conceptions the mature investigator entertains. I used to begin the first meeting of my graduate seminar by telling the dozen or so students that much of what I had been taught at Yale turned out to be mistaken, so they should remain skeptical of everything I said over the next four months.