(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

______________________________________
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html