I agree that it's worse than pointless to fill up bandwidth and multiply
the message count with repetitions of old-news Hemings-TJ arguments, and I
agree about the deplorable list-tampering. But in my view, it's also
important to recognize that in fact not everything that _can_ and ought to
be said about Hemings-TJ _has_ been said -- even if much of what has
already been said gets repeated in this forum way too often.
One example, one self-serving example, and one observation:
* The example: Cyndi Burton's _Jefferson Vindicated_ offers
new evidence. Dan Jordan himself has affirmed that new
evidence merits considering. I'd like to hear more from
thoughtful people about her book.
* The self-serving example: I can imagine that someone
could prove wrong much that's in the essay that I posted
last week at TJscience.org ("Sally Hemings, Thomas
Jefferson, and the Authority of Science"), but leaving
aside the essay's summary of fairly well known criticisms
of _Nature_'s editors, I can't imagine that anyone could
prove the criticisms of _Science_ magazine and of the
famous statistical study to be old news. In fact I wrote
the essay in large part precisely because certain
dimensions of the paternity controversy -- especially the
statistical science -- have simply been left undiscussed,
I believe because of C. P. Snow's two-cultures gap. I'd
like to hear what thoughtful people have to say about
all of this too.
* The observation: The DNA news will be ten years old
this fall. I don't know if Professor Bob Turner's
Scholars Commission book could still make it into print
this year, but I've read his manuscript carefully, and
it seems to me that it offers some pretty interesting
refutations of arguments that paternity believers often
seem to find unassailable. But even if Bob's book isn't
distributed this fall, it seems to me that we will soon
see DNA ten-year-anniversary coverage in the media,
conceivably leading to discussions meriting attention
in a fairly scholarly Virginia history forum.
I admit, however, that I don't know the remedy for the annual shouting
match. Maybe TJ was wrong when he said that reason and free inquiry are the
enemies of error and of error only. Maybe they're also the enemies of
shouting. (Yes, I know, shouting is really only a species of error.)
Thanks very much.
Steve Corneliussen
Original Message:
-----------------
From: Tarter, Brent (LVA) [log in to unmask]
Date: Mon, 12 May 2008 13:53:10 -0400
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [VA-HIST] Va-Hist
Just having returned from a holiday without an Internet connection, I
find that a handfull of subscribers have been having the annual shouting
match about Thomas Jefferson and sex and race, to the great annoyance of
subscribers who have heard this all before and whose e-mail boxes
overflowed with short messages appended to long previous messages and
making their daily digests burst at the seams.
Also, some person was so annoyed, as Peter Bergstrom recently reported,
that he or she managed to have one internet service provider block all
messages from the Library of Virginia's server as Spam. That person
unsubscribed, which deprives us of the pleasure of kicking her or him
off the list permanently.
Please, NOBODY undertake to speak or write for or on behalf of Va-Hist
or any other list.
Brent Tarter
The Library of Virginia
[log in to unmask]
Please visit the Library of Virginia's Web site at
http://www.lva.virginia.gov
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