Fair enough, Ms. Heckscher -- and again I apologize for my stupid
misspelling. I agree with all of this, including the implication that
there's some overstatement or maybe distortion in my linking my main
question about one thing in your original posting to a cherry-picked later
statement in the posting.
I do note, though, that if you talk to Cyndi Burton, it turns out that she
has her reasons for using a spun title for a book in a discussion that is
not really, or at least not entirely, conducted in the normal academic way.
Steve Corneliussen
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jurretta Heckscher" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 11:42 AM
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] "Jefferson defenders" vs. "Hemings partisans," cont.
> Thanks very much, Mr. Corneliussen, for raising this fair-minded
> question.
>
> The answer is that I have not read Ms. Burton's book, although that has
> been more a function of time (this is not actually my area of current
> research, and my reading time is limited!) than of absolute unwillingness
> to do so, as I do find the Jefferson-Hemings question relevant enough to
> my professional life in a couple of ways I need not detail here to wish
> to keep abreast sooner or later of any genuinely new information in the
> matter. Your recommendation, along with Henry Wiencek's, leads me to
> believe that I ought to look at the Burton work on those grounds when I
> can find the time to do so.
>
> "Jefferson Vindicated" may well be a useful entry in this hydra-like
> debate, then. My point, however, was that by giving her work such a
> title--rather than, say, "The Jefferson-Hemings History: A
> Reconsideration," or something similarly neutral--Burton tips her hand,
> automatically arousing skepticism in the mind of anyone who does not see
> the matter as one of vindication vs. conviction and leading them to doubt
> her objectivity in the inevitable supposition that she would not have
> undertaken any research that could have led her to title her book
> (equally tendentiously) "Jefferson Convicted."
>
> Your further point--expressed with admirable delicacy, I should add!--
> that by criticizing Burton without reading her book, I indulge the same a
> priori accusation of bad faith with which I charge Mr. Barger, is fair
> but not quite on the mark, I think. The difference is that I do have
> evidence--her own book title--to question Burton's open- mindedness to
> historical evidence, even before I have laid hands on her work. Mr.
> Barger, by contrast, adduces no evidence for his shrill and sweeping
> charges implying that individuals on this list (including myself) and the
> numerous scholars he berates on Amazon.com suffer from biases of
> "political correctness," "historical revisionism," or professional
> gullibility--except that we disagree with him.
>
> I look forward to your response to my query on the statistical matter,
> from which I expect to learn something--after which I will with pleasure
> turn to the countless other subjects so long eclipsed on this list!
>
> --Jurretta
>
>
> On May 6, 2008, at 7:01 AM, S. Corneliussen wrote:
>
>> Question for Jurretta Hecksher
>>
>> I owe, and am working to send, Jurretta Heckscher an answer about my
>> arguments concerning what has been called the statistical pillar in the
>> three-pillared paternity proof: historical evidence, DNA, and
>> statistics. Meanwhile, something in Ms. Heckscher's thoughtful
>> admonishment of Mr. Barger for his manners and zealous excesses has
>> inspired a question from me to her.
>>
>> Ms. Hecksher, you wrote to Mr. Barger:
>>
>>> You refer to other
>>> possible candidates for the paternity of SH's children as "suspects"
>>> (e.g., in messages of April 29 and May 3). A genealogist whose work
>>> you doubtless value discloses a similar outlook when she titles her
>>> book on the relationship "Jefferson Vindicated`" (it is difficult to
>>> believe that a book bearing such a title represents anything other
>>> than a sustained attempt to reach a foreordained conclusion, which is
>>> not how persuasive historical analysis is made).
>>
>> But you also wrote that you are "viscerally disinclined to take
>> seriously the arguments of someone who deems [you] a priori guilty
>> (sic) of bad faith."
>>
>> My question is: Have you actually read Cyndi Burton's _Jefferson
>> Vindicated_?
>>
>> Maybe you have indeed read it. If so, I apologize sheepishly for
>> challenging you on this point, and I'll return meekly to preparing the
>> answer that I owe you about statistics -- except to say three more
>> things:
>>
>> * Though I disagree with a lot of what Mr. Barger says and with much in
>> his manner of saying it, I'll bet he does indeed value Cyndi's book, and
>> so do I. Reading _Jefferson Vindicated_ made me a whole lot less
>> confident about many of the paternity believers' arguments. In my view
>> Cyndi's explorations of primary sources have led to valuable
>> contributions to new knowledge about Hemings-TJ. I make my living
>> working with physicists, and though I can usually follow what they say,
>> I have no hope of attaining their level of knowledge. I feel the same
>> way when I talk to Cyndi about Hemings- TJ, as I have done regularly for
>> several years now. I also believe that I know the physicists well enough
>> that I could tell if they were getting intellectually careless. They
>> never do, which is why I admire them. Same with Cyndi. Nobody who cares
>> about this controversy should fail to read her book.
>>
>> * I don't believe, as I noted once before in this forum, that University
>> of Richmond history professor Woody Holton read _Jefferson Vindicated_
>> before posting a book review about it at Amazon.com -- a book review in
>> which he nevertheless went so far as to tar Cyndi with an implied charge
>> of white supremacism. (I admonished him as you've now admonished Mr.
>> Barger.)
>>
>> * This whole episode, centered most recently on Mr. Barger's manners and
>> zealous excesses, reminds me that Henry Wiencek might be right to
>> accentuate the polarization by framing things as "Jefferson defenders"
>> vs. "Hemings partisans" instead of as something like paternity
>> disbelievers vs. paternity believers (though that's polarized too, I
>> admit). Yes, Cyndi's book's title goes against the principles you refer
>> to, Ms. Hecksher, when you talk about what "is not how persuasive
>> historical analysis is made." But in this controversy, I'm not sure I
>> fault her for it as you might do. Maybe she was only responding to a
>> reality. Is this discussion really historical analysis, or do _both_
>> sides actually make it the polarized fight that Mr. Wiencek's chosen
>> terms imply?
>>
>> Thanks very much.
>>
>> I remain,
>>
>> A paternity agnostic,
>>
>> Steven T. Corneliussen
>>
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