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 ______________________________________ To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html -------------------------------------------------------------------- myhosting.com - Premium Microsoft® Windows® and Linux web and application hosting - http://link.myhosting.com/myhosting ______________________________________ To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html