Re: Skeptics

[Adam Levenstein <cleon42@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Just a word or two on skeptics.
>
> Also, if you go to skeptics.com, you will discover
> that one Nicholas
> Chagnon is on their Board of Directors.

Eh? There's nothing on skeptics.com. If you mean
skeptic.com, that's Michael Shermer's Skeptic Society.
It's run pretty much exclusively by him.

> He is the
> crackpot anthropologist
> who made life hell for the Yanomami. Many of these
> skeptics, including
> Sokal himself, are fond of pooh-poohing indigenous
> critics of bourgeois
> science, most especially Vine Deloria Jr's "Red
> Earth, White Lies." They
> are particularly upset with the Umatilla objections
> to studying the bones
> of "Kennewick man". How dare these Indians stand in
> the way of the pure
> white light of science and truth.

I'm actually sympathetic to the scientists in the
Kennewick Man dispute. There's no reason to believe
that the skeleton has any ancestry to any of the
groups living in the area now, or even during the
contact period. That's what makes it so interesting;
potentially, it could redefine our current history of
how the Americas were populated.

The problem relates to NAGPRA - the Native American
Grave and (something) Repatriation Act. It actually
accepts "oral histories" as valid, sans question or
debate. If their oral history says they were the only
ones there, then scientists and museums have to give
the Nation in question any artifacts that were taken
out of their territory. It doesn't matter if the facts
show this group didn't exist when said artifact/body
was placed at the site. Strikes me as a shoddy way to
make up for past abuses, to say nothing of science.

Adam


=====
Adam Levenstein                          cleon42@xxxxxxxxx
ICQ: 17125158

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