Here is an article from the NY Times about how a National Geographic project to trace the movement of our ancestors is snagged on the unwillingness of indiginous groups to contribute. Why?
Another person quoted wondered why they should make it easier to show that their ancestors migrated from Asia, and were not there already. Another was nervous that they would lose benefits if it wer shown they came from Siberia.
Interest in finding out the real story seems to play no part in these idiots opinions. (There are some people quoted who do want to know the truth, to be fair.) The Garden of Eden or the Grand Canyon, those believing in myths as facts are all the same.
Very timely rant, as I was just reading Spencer Wells’ book, Deep Ancestry: Inside the Genographic Project, this weekend, and I sent in for my kit to add myself to their database* (costs about $100, but you get some interesting info about your ancestry on either your maternal or paternal side).
Yes, this is just as idiotic, if not more so, than the Christian bibilical literalists since they have some crazy idea that the results will have a policical affect on their tribe or whatever. Nuts. Just nuts. There’s nothing wrong with respecting your cutlure and traditions, but turning myth into science is just plain stooooopid.
Here’s a link for anyone else interested in doing so. I highly recommend it.
Think so? I’m not sure. These people have some very tangible reasons to distrust white people, and the loss of land is a very understandable fear. Perhaps no such loss is a real world scenario, but the fear runs deep.
Meh. They’re equally stupid, and equally politically motivated. Or are you telling me that Fallberobson et al aren’t using the anti-science agenda to rally the base?
Somebody was opining the other day that Tom Cruise deserves a special place in infamy for being such a shill for Scientology. I responded that I didn’t agree - yeah, they guy’s a dink, but to this atheist, there’s no objective difference between L. Ron Hubbard and Jesus H. Christ.
This is about on the same level of absurdity as the legal battle over the origins (and therefore ownership) of Kennewick Man, and that performing DNA testing would offend the religious sensibilities of the tribes involved.
I don’t see that either science or law should take the position of protecting ignorance out of concern for contridictions with ethnic or religious belief. It’s fine for you to believe whatever you wish, but do demand that everyone else not only respect your right to do so, but also to respect your specific set of beliefs even in the face of contradictory data is nescient and doltish.
This issue came up ten years ago with the discover of Kennewick Man
One jaded observer might begin to think this was really about exploiting guilt & grievances for political power.
This same observer would recall the time when two Native American teens jacked a pizza delivery driver and, instead of being fed into the juvenile justice system, were allowed to go camping on a remote island in a “traditional” cleansing ritual, under the (ultimately lax) supervision of a Native American shaman who sent the state a hefty bill for his services. In a radio interview he placed the blame for the teens’ transgression on white society, since their way of life had been stolen. Because, you know, now that there are no buffalo you should go after the great herds of Ford Festivas with Domino’s lights on them instead.
Native Americans are quite familiar with unforseen consequences as a result of their dealings with the white man. Their welfare in many cases precariously hinges on their indigenous status on the whim of the white man.
DNA is white man’s knowledge and more knowledge about the native American is power that can be used against him . This could mean eroding their indigenous rights or their own cultural identity passed down from their ancestors which is pretty well all they have left.
I’d like to see a cite for a treaty that would be invalid if a people were shown not to have lived on land forever. That they did dwell here for thousands of years longer than us (and longer than the world existed according to Western creationist myths) is a fact.
Plus, when whites rip off native Americans, they don’t need much of an excuse.
John, thanks for the link. It will be interesting to see how much Cossack blood I have.
I recently toured some Pueblo Indian archaeological sites. One of them noted that their continued excavation, preservation, and display is controversial to the tribes that descended from them. It isn’t so much about white men taking their stuff, it’s a firm belief that what was abandoned shouldn’t be reclaimed, what was left behind shouldn’t be preserved lest the world fill up with old stuff. It’s a culture antithetical to archeology. This kind of inquiry simply isn’t valued by them.
“DNA is white man’s knowledge”? That’s a bigoted statement if I’ve ever heard one. Knowledge is there for anyone to learn, regardless of gender, ethnicity, religious belief, et cetera. Hijacking the pursuit of legitimate scientific inquiry under the guise of protecting traditional cultural beliefs is nonsense; and while it’s manifestly true that the aborigonal peoples of the Americas have been subject to affronts that would not be inappropriately compared to genocide, it does not follow that retribution should involve the unassailable control and suppression of useful data in perpetuity simply to suit the sensibility of an ethnic group.
I am absolutely on the other side of the fence from all the various groups who wish to ignore DNA, liguistic analysis, the fossil record, or any other evidence because it might contradict a group’s mythology.
On the other hand, the 19th and 20th centuries are full of examples of European-based societies holding up (their understanding at the time of) “science” as a justification to interfere with the lives of indigenous peoples–or to destroy them–and the fear among those peoples has a logical basis.
Ultimately, the world will move on regardless of their beliefs and I suspect that they will be better off reconciling those beliefs to science sooner rather than later. However, simply disparaging them because they express well-deserved fears in ways that we find frustrating is probably going to look to them as simply more “white” arrogance. It will probably actually hinder any efforts to get them to consider reconciling their beliefs with science.
I suggest that everyone read The Skull Wars by David Hurst Thomas. It’s mostly about the Kennewick Man, but it brings up a much larger issue about the relationship of scientists to Native Americans. If someone accidentally stumbles across a burial place of a white person, those remains are treated with respect and reintered. If someone stumbles across an American Indian burial place, those bones are put in a box in a museum or university somewhere, treated as an object for study and not somebody’s ancestor. Historically, those bones were also used to “prove” that indigenous people are inferior to those of European decent. American Indians have fought hard to stop that practice, to show the utter inhumanity of it. And things have been changing. In 1990, congress passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act which has returned many human remains to the tribes who claim them as ancestors.
Therefore, I do not think it’s stupid at all for American Indians to mistrust western science. I think that if western science wants to get American Indians on their side, they need to respect them and their religions and their creation stories, not call them “creationist morons.” There should be a way to make the goals of western science mesh with the goals of American Indians.
Can you give a cite of anyone stumbling across the 5000 year old plus grave a “white person” where the remains were treated any differently than Kennewick Man? Not to mention that KM wasn’t burried in the first place. It certainly wasn’t the case for Ötzi.
Besides, this has nothing to do with what the OP is talking about.
