(Again I've changed the subject line, since "New Presidential Descendant Claimant" is irrelevant to the posting that I'm answering. I've deliberately retained that posting at the bottom.) Thanks, Richard Dixon, for your crisp distillation of the case for paternity disbelief. It reminds me why I'm a paternity agnostic despite having leaned toward paternity belief a decade ago. It seems to me, by the way, that paternity disbelievers will likely be bundled together for renewal of attacks against them, thanks to a race-focused attack by ardent disbelievers Rebecca L. McMurry and James F. McMurry, Jr., against paternity believer Annette Gordon-Reed. The McMurrys' attack appears in the book review "Paranormal Reports from Monticello" in the ardently right-wing http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/ . As you might expect, the review accuses Gordon-Reed of bad scholarship involving "garbled facts and half-truths." As I wouldn't have expected, and as I hope is not true, the McMurrys also accuse Gordon-Reed of "[b]orrowing heavily as she followed" the McMurrys' own 2002 book "while failing to acknowledge" the McMurrys "as her mystery opponents." But as surely almost no one would have expected, new rounds of nastiness in the Hemings-TJ controversy could now start thanks to lines from the review like this one: "To best understand Gordon-Reed, one should read David Horowitz’s 2000 book Hating Whitey." Sheesh. I haven't yet read the new Gordon-Reed book. But even as a paternity agnostic, I've been called a racist -- and other names -- in public. I'm not looking forward to what might now be coming for serious, civil, constructive Hemings-TJ discussion participants on all sides. Nevertheless I'm still interested in civil, constructive discussion, particularly insofar as science evidence is involved. So I'd like to engage your assertion that "it was the Monticello Report ... which firmly convinced the academic community that the [paternity] issue was finally settled." I wouldn't dispute that, but I do want to note two things that I believe are important: * Gordon-Reed's colleague R. B. Bernstein, who like her is both a law professor and an accomplished scholar of history, wrote a short TJ biography that Gordon S. Wood, writing in the New York Times, called the best such biography ever. Bernstein echoed other scholars’ belief that solid proof of Hemings-Jefferson parenthood now exists, resting on one nonscientific and two scientific evidentiary “pillars”: historical, DNA, and statistical. The other scholars being echoed include the Monticello Report's authors and Jan Lewis, who wrote the introduction to that William and Mary Quarterly post-DNA essay collection in which appeared the statistical study of the apparent conceptions coincidences. Lewis called that study an “ingenious statistical evaluation” that “should quiet those who have resisted accepting Jefferson’s paternity.” In my view, though, that study actually contributes nothing at all to the Hemings-TJ discussion. My point: for all that the Monticello Report may be crucial in whatever it is that academe actually thinks, what academe actually thinks has been informed in some measure by science -- including junk science. (I'm not, by the way, saying that you dispute this.) * It also seems worth proposing that we don't actually know what academe or "most historians," to use the standard media phrase, actually think about Hemings-TJ. No one, to my knowledge, has ever actually researched that. My own sense is that the answers, if attainable at all, would be complicated. Thanks. Steve Corneliussen Richard E. Dixon wrote: >Steve >While journalists have certainly perpetuated mistaken conclusions from the >DNA tests, ("the Carrs were cleared," "Thomas Jefferson fathered Hemings' >children"), the failure in putting the DNA results in context with the >known historical facts lies with the academic community. Journalists write >stories, not history, and if they make a mistake, they move on, and we are >left with the uncertain remedy of a letter to the editor. Much has been >made of the Nature headline that trumpeted Thomas Jefferson as the father >of a slave child. That certainly created an exciting story line and the >journalists jumped on it. But it was the Monticello Report, about 14 months >later, touted as a "the most extensive compilation ever of what is known >and not known" about the paternity story, which firmly convinced the >academic community that the issue was finally settled. This Report was >compiled by the staff at Monticello and it concluded that Jefferson "was >most likely the father of all six of Sally Heming's children." Other than >the DNA tests, the Report presented no new evidence, and relied on the >"birth pattern," the Madison Hemings "Memoirs," the "resemblance" claim, >the "proximity "argument, and the "oral history" of the Hemings and Woodson >families. The most astounding claim by the Monticello report was the >"single father" postulate. The report observed that the Hemings siblings >had a "closeness" that could only come from a single father. Since the >report concluded that Jefferson must be Eston's father, and since they all >had the same father, Jefferson must be the father of them all. This >"closeness" is supposedly demonstrated by siblings naming their children >after each other. I doubt many on this list have actually read the >Monticello report, but because of Monticello's prestige and influence, it >is reason enough for most to accept the conclusions without dissent or >further study. Later, when the Scholars Commission report was released, >composed of independent historians, which studied the matter for over a >year,concluded that it was "unlikely" that Jefferson fathered any of the >Hemings children, many academics had become paternity believers. > >Richard E. Dixon >Editor, Jefferson Notes >Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society >4122 Leonard Drive >Fairfax, Va 22030 >703-691-0770 fax 703-691-0978 > >______________________________________ >To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at >http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html > > ______________________________________ To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html