Thank you for this insightful posting. It reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite TV shows from the 1950's (Dragnet); "Just fhe facts Ma'am, just the facts". Removing the passion and emotion around this topic makes it easier to focus on the, "Facts."
Anita
> Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 23:27:29 -0400
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Jefferson on BookTV
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> (Is the electronic coast now clear for resumption of discussions? I'll try.)
>
> Thanks very much, Henry Wiencek, for posting notice of this BookTV
> discussion, and for moderating it. I learned a lot and enjoyed it a lot.
>
> Those who watched will recall that a good bit of the discussion focused on
> the Hemings-Jefferson paternity controversy. In my case, that's interesting
> not so much because of the paternity question itself -- about which I'm a
> head-scratching agnostic -- but because I make my living at the
> intersections of science and society. I've studied the use and misuse of
> science in the Hemings-TJ debate since the DNA news first appeared nearly
> ten years ago. Here's why I bring up the Hemings-TJ techno-historiography:
>
> At one point in the broadcast Jon Kukla, I believe it was, remarked that in
> the decade since the DNA evidence appeared, everyone involved in the
> discussion has come to agree on what the DNA did and did not prove. Now, it
> does seem to me that that's always been mostly true for historians, who
> mostly avoided being misled by the journal Nature's original
> misrepresentation of what the DNA scientists actually reported about their
> molecular findings. And it does seem to me that it has been getting closer
> to mostly true in the media. But I don't think it's fully true, and I think
> it matters. So I offer two comments:
>
> First, unless I misunderstand something fundamental -- and someone please
> tell me if I do -- a common Hemings-TJ DNA science error cropped up right on
> that TV broadcast. Alan Pell Crawford at one point said of the DNA, "the
> Carr boys -- it cleared them." Yes, the DNA showed that no Carr fathered
> Eston Hemings. But the DNA tells absolutely nothing about any other Hemings
> child. This DNA science error also appeared last year in Maura Singleton's
> fine U.Va. Magazine recap of the Hemings-TJ controversy.
>
> Second, it's not uncommon even nowadays to find someone saying, erroneously,
> in print or in a broadcast, that the DNA itself -- as opposed to historical
> evidence seen in the light of DNA findings -- proved TJ to have been Eston's
> dad, or even that the DNA proved TJ the dad of all the children. Two notable
> examples:
>
> * Lori B. Andrews, a law professor, led a group whose report "Constructing
> Ethical Guidelines for Biohistory" appeared in the magazine Science on April
> 9, 2004. They plainly understood that the DNA by itself did not prove
> paternity. Yet in an October 7, 2007, article in the Sunday magazine Parade,
> Professor Andrews asserted, erroneously, that the DNA indicated that TJ
> fathered a Hemings child.
> http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/2007/edition_10-07-2007/Secrets_from_the_Grave
>
> * A March 28, 2007, University of Leicester scientific press release opened
> by asserting that nearly a decade earlier, a team of DNA scientists "showed
> that Thomas Jefferson had fathered at least one of the sons of Sally
> Hemings." http://www.physorg.com/news94279329.html
>
> Especially in the latter of those two cases, it's possible to torture out a
> feeble claim that if you look deeply enough, you'll see that underlying the
> erroneous scientific claim, there's actually a compensating supposition that
> historical interpretation is part of DNA science. In other cases, this sort
> of blurring of the distinction between molecular findings and historical
> interpretation is a little more obvious. But I still run across, or people
> send me, public claims that science itself flat outright proved the
> paternity.
>
> Ten years ago the editors at Nature, acting without the reporting DNA
> scientists' consent, gave the world a bad headline on the scientists'
> report. Worse, alongside the accompanying commentary piece by a geneticist
> and Joseph Ellis, they published an outright false stand-first summary and
> an outright false illustration caption. The world press broke the news
> accordingly. Thereafter, we all had to chase a silly goose. All of that is
> well known already, but my point today is this:
>
> I agree that we chase that silly goose less now than we did in late 1998 and
> in 1999. But we do still chase it.
>
> It's too bad, really. The debate is confusing and contentious enough without
> the goose that Nature loosed.
>
> It's too bad also because the distraction hindered understanding worldwide.
> It misled people into thinking that the character of the claimed historical
> proof was the same as the character of a forensic DNA proof in a crime case.
> I believe that that misunderstanding stopped people from independently
> assessing historical interpretations.
>
> And it's also too bad because the special authority of science matters in
> public discussion, as seen in public issues from global overheating to the
> side effects of immunizations. You'd think that the editors of the world's
> leading science forum, the journal Nature, would know that.
>
> Thanks for indulging this bit of science nerdery, and please indulge one
> more personal note: Because I've been called a racist before for talking
> like this, I repeat that I'm actually a paternity agnostic. And I note that
> in this forum, the racism charge would stand in preposterous counterpoint to
> previous postings of mine -- postings that led to charges of political
> correctness because I advocated
> * improved understanding of, and heightened respect for, the
> self-emancipators of May 1861 who made Fort Monroe the
> most under-recognized crisis of the early twenty-first century
> for American history lovers, and
> * thoughtful reconsideration of the unexamined recycling of
> slavery-era language connoting perverted slavery-era illogic.
>
> Steven T. Corneliussen
> Poquoson, Virginia
> (and Jefferson Lab, Newport News)
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Henry Wiencek" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 9:12 PM
> Subject: [VA-HIST] Jefferson on BookTV
>
> There was a fascinating panel on Thomas Jefferson at the Virginia Festival
> of the Book, and it's going to be on cable this weekend on BookTV which is
> on CSpan:
>
> Saturday at 11:00 AM, and Sunday at 6:00 AM
> 2008 Virginia Festival of the Book - Thomas Jefferson Panel
> Authors: Jeremy Bailey; Alan Pell Crawford; Jon Kukla
> [and myself, the uncredited Moderator.]
>
> A very lively discussion, with a "full and frank, fair and balanced" airing
> of issues of continuing interest to the members of the list.
>
> Henry Wiencek
> Charlottesville
>
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