The Genographic Project is elicting a new round of objections from indigenous community leaders. Genetics and Health has a good post up highlighting the issues. Two prelim points:
- I am skeptical of the science that is going to come out of this. I believe that the "hot stuff" is going to be studying selection in the human genome, not trying to reconstruct phylogenies
- I also accept that "science" has been the tool of injustice and even barbarity against indigenous peoples
- I say "community leaders" because "indigenous peoples" aren't a monolith. Just as George W. Bush doesn't represent all Americans, so community leaders don't represent the whole community
Now, look at this quote:
...Geographic origin stories told by DNA can clash with long-held beliefs, threatening a world view some indigenous leaders see as vital to preserving their culture.
They argue that genetic ancestry information could also jeopardize land rights and other benefits that are based on the notion that their people have lived in a place since the beginning of time.
First, does this sound familiar? Science clashing with long-head beliefs? Second, why the hell are land rights and benefits contingent upon mythologies which can be empirically debunked?
This is disappointing to hear. I can't blame people for wanting to keep their land and distrusting scientists or people who might use scientific information.
My question: who are these indigenous leaders? Are they Russell Means types "playing Indian," or are they the real deal?
I don't see how information about whatever happened 12,000 years ago could endanger land rights. This hasn't happened anywhere else in the world. The greatest political danger is probably in silence or obscurity - not to mention inter-tribal Balkanization and disunity.
There's an easy way around that "we've been here forever on Turtle Island" type stuff. It's religion: religion and science need not contradict. Maybe spirits have been eternally in situ, but genes came from somewhere else. Works for me.
I've heard that the Native American Museum in DC deleted an "origins" exhibit because of these types of objections. Apparently, the idea of a land bridge and a relatively recent arrival in North America was too objectionable to some. I haven't been there, but would love to hear if this is true.
Vine Deloria, Jr. was saying similar things years ago. It would appear that many of the same issues of faith that bind conservative Christians to literality also bind some indigenous peoples to oral traditions. What is interesting is that sometimes these 'creation' myths have had to be reconstructed from ethnographies! Makes one wonder.
You may not be interested in reconstructing human migrations, but other folks are. Until the last few decades, we had only two means of documenting pre-historic human movements: archaeological digs and current language distributions. All too often, any change in material culture was interpreted as mass migration/invasion/conquest (the iPod people conquered the Walkman people and completely wiped them out) and the spread of a language group was interpreted as the spread of the people originally speaking it (amazing how many people of South Asia are of English descent, judging by their command of English). Then Cavalli-Sforza introduced genetic evidence into the mix, and showed (as should have been evident to common sense) that spread of language and material culture doesn't necessarily imply genetic change. The more genetic evidence we have, the better! And if religious nuts don't like it, tough. Irrelevant if they're indigenous religious nuts.
I object to NuSapiens comments about Russell Means "Playing Indian" in the strongest possible terms. Mr. Means IS an indian, and Mr. NuSapiens comments are typical of the dominant culture's attitudes toward and ignorance of native people. No wonder native people are nervous when you have arrogant and ignorant people like NuSapiens trying to determine things that simply are none of their business such as "who is and who is not "playing at being an Indian"" whatever the hell that means, etc. It simply doesn't end for native people does it? As curious as I am to see what the Anthropological origins of ethnic groups, I understand the reticence of native people to cooperate in these types of studies.
Myths are also understood poorly too. They are stories of origin and community, and like religion are in a different magisterium than is science. Furthermore, they have a different purpose than does science. Myths are involved with identity and cohesion as a culture. The idea that facts can "prove" a myth or can disprove a myth is pretty silly, since a myth is necessarily not "true" in the way a scientific finding or legal finding is "true".
Also, realize that just because something isn't "true" doesn't mean it doesn't have value! How many of us have used Newtonian mechanics to come up with a useful approximation of something "truly" described relativisticly?
Finally, I would hope NuSapiens observation would hold true that it is hard to think something that happened 12k years ago could influence today's decisions, but if I were on the rez and my claim to my land were dependant on what politicians etc. think, I'd worry about anything that might challenge my hold on what I've got- as silly as it might seem to NuSapiens and their ilk.
). Then Cavalli-Sforza introduced genetic evidence into the mix, and showed (as should have been evident to common sense) that spread of language and material culture doesn't necessarily imply genetic change.
i like that stuff. my point is that uniparental neutral markers are pretty well documented now. i think we got the big picture settled and we are in the domain of diminishing returns.
I haven't gotten around to posting on this yet, but the NY Times article, p. 3, makes clear why rights might be endangered. Consider the Aleut woman who is told that her mtDNA looks Yup'ik. Now, we genetic sophisticates all know that means squat about her ancestry -- first of all, the comparative samples aren't large enough to diagnose group affinity at a high confidence, and second the mtDNA represents only 1/2^n of ancestry n generations ago.
Still, it's not too hard to imagine the tribe whose current Y chromosome complement is half or more European. Or supposedly some distant tribe with no history of local residence. Scientifically, these results would be interesting and would probably be published. Where any opponent of renewing some tribal gaming compact can read and use them.
It's amazing to me that anyone would sign on to a project like this, when it is obvious the genetic ancestry of all recent groups has been mixed in ways that will inevitably generate some kind of "problem" results, from a political standpoint.
The legal questions are not particularly impacted by origins myths (even Kennewick), but the political landscape certainly is. Considering the pressures for young people to leave traditional tribal land for jobs and education (same as all rural people), and the generalized loss of tradition and acceleration of outbreeding, the people who retain a stake in the political future of tribes are the people who have the strongest cultural ties keeping them together. Traditional histories are politically special, and that makes scientific "truth" another potential wedge splitting communities apart.
Still, it's not too hard to imagine the tribe whose current Y chromosome complement is half or more European. Or supposedly some distant tribe with no history of local residence. Scientifically, these results would be interesting and would probably be published. Where any opponent of renewing some tribal gaming compact can read and use them.
this adds marginal novelty. the majority of 'native americans' in the USA are mixed-blood anyway, and some northeastern tribes are overwhelmingly european in genetic origin. i think there is some marginal downside in the case of tribal groups, but i think that it is outweighed by the scientific issue. but for these tribal leaders the science is irrelevant so they lose nothing.
"Indigenous peoples" should have no special rights, no matter where they live. Usually, having or wanting to have that is considered racist. Furthermore, their precious collective delusions should not only not be respected, but receive the disrespect they deserve.
Regarding "science": while "science" with scare quotes has been a (but most probably not "the") tool to abuse first-comers to many areas (that's what "indigenous" really means), the sad truth is that it's because science without scare quotes has been missing for so many of these people that they have been suffering. Science effects happiness more than anything else, it's the most good-natured thing there is. Opposition to science is not nice.
Reale is clearly ignorant of the history of so-called "special rights" for the idigenous, at least in the US, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa. Lest he forget (and I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt in assuming he ever knew things to be so), at least in the US Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, most "indigenous people's rights" derive from treaties signed between indigenous and invading nations. And as such, they were to be binding for the term of the treaties, most if not all of which were understood to be in perpetuity and encompassing the members of the nations signitory to the treaties. It is interesting that Reale frames this in a Racist format whereas the real origin of these rights was as a result of negotiation between nations.
And I might add that calling Science "good natured" is at best foolish. Science is a particular subset of positivist philosophy that attempts to describe the material world with the useful ability to make predictions about material things. How can a philosophy be anthropomorphicised to have an emotional investment in anything. If I were inclined to ad hominum attacks, I would call Reale stupid, rather than merely ignorant.
It doesn't matter by what process "indigenous peoples" may have derived their special rights, or what they base their claims to them on. All people should have equal rights. Legally privileged individuals are enemies of the people.
Science is good-natured because it tends to lead to happiness like nothing else.
Reale, here's a piece of advice from IIRC Voltaire that you should take to heart.
"It's better to keep one's mouth shut and be thought an idiot than to open it and remove all doubt."
My first instint is to try and explain to you why you are so wrong, but I'm an experienced teacher and I know when someone is beyond my powers to enlighten.
Or you are a troll.