A friend who knows of my interest in the ways in which the authority of 
science is invoked in the Hemings-TJ controversy was visiting a new Thomas 
Jefferson Foundation exhibit and jotted down this caption: "Based on 
documentary, scientific, and statistical studies and oral history, many 
historians now believe that years after his wife's death Thomas Jefferson 
was the father of Sally Hemings' children." The friend is pretty sure that 
that's very close to verbatim.

Leaving aside the old discussion about oral history vs. oral tradition, and 
concerning only the mention of statistics: It's possible that all that's 
meant is, for example, Winthrop Jordan's often-recalled nonquantitative 
observations about the qualitatively intriguing Hemings-TJ Monticello 
conceptions coincidences. But in the past, the TJF has, I believe, 
explicitly invoked the outright quantitative statistical study that appeared 
in the William and Mary Quarterly nearly a decade ago. That study 
confidently invoked the full authority of statistical science in professing 
to have proven TJ's paternity of six Hemings children. That quantitative, 
not just qualitative, study involved probability theory, Monte Carlo 
simulations, and Bayes's theorem.

I would be grateful for answers or comments on three questions: Does anybody 
know if the TJF still means deliberately to cite that study as legitimate 
scientific evidence? Does anybody know if any other such _quantitative_ 
statistical study has appeared anwhere? If so, does anybody know if the TJF 
is now citing any such study?

Thanks very much.

Steve Corneliussen
Poquoson, Virginia

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