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From: karl h schwerin <>
Subject: [WHITNEY-L] FW: 1/30/2003 Daily Report from The Chronicle of Higher Education (fwd)
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 09:36:24 -0700 (MST)


For all those who are interested in tracing the genetics of the Whitney
line(s), the following article should be of great interest. I'm not
suggesting that the effort isn't worthwhile, but the article does note
some of the limitations of such efforts.

Karl SchwerinSnailMail: Dept. of Anthropology
Univ. of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM 87131
e-mail:

Cultural anthropology...is valuable because it is constantly rediscovering
the normal. Edward Sapir (1949:151)

---------- Forwarded message ----------

-----Original Message-----
From: The Chronicle [mailto:]
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 3:00 AM
To: Chronicle Daily Report
Subject: 1/30/2003 Daily Report from The Chronicle of Higher Education


ACADEME TODAY: The Chronicle of Higher Education's
Daily Report for subscribers
______________________________________________________________

Good day!

Here are news bulletins from The Chronicle of Higher Education
for Thursday, January 30.

_________________________________________________________________

MAGAZINES & JOURNALS

A glance at the winter issue of "Wilson Quarterly":
The uncertainties of genetic identity

A variety of commercial services now offer to reveal customers'
ancestry by comparing their DNA with data collected by
population geneticists, but "can the process really deliver what
people are looking for?" asks Carl Elliott, an associate
professor of philosophy and bioethics at the University of
Minnesota-Twin Cities. Customers are generally seeking identity
through a link with the past. But, he writes, "given the long
and damaging history of eugenicist thinking and race-based
discrimination, a technology that seems to ratify the old racial
categories resists wholehearted embrace."

Such technologies could have significant -- and controversial --
outcomes. For example, he notes, federal programs for American
Indians are reserved for people who can demonstrate a certain
"blood quantum," and many tribes require such a measure for
membership, too. And the genetic-testing techniques are not
without a catch, he warns. They depend on the fact that some
genetic material can be traced back to various parts of the
world. However, he says, the tracing works in a very limited
way, so that going back, for example, 15 generations, a person's
genetic material can be linked to only one of 32,768 ancestors,
who were possibly racially and ethnically varied. One company,
he notes, purports to be able to provide a comprehensive
breakdown of clients' genetic origins -- what part of them is
white, black, and so forth -- but geneticists consider such
precision impossible.

The "slender thread of information" that such "genealogy by
genetics" services provide, Mr. Elliott writes, may be just what
a client wants -- a hint at some ethnic, national, religious, or
racial ancestry. But, he argues, the thinking that drives such
new services is troubling. Yes, he says, "it's impossible to get
away from genetics entirely." For example, "so many structures
of identity are rooted in kinship," and "some aspects of
identity are not a matter of individual choice." And yet, he
writes, "we'd like to believe that identity should be rooted in
something other than genetics or race."

The article is not online, but information about the journal is
available at
http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.current
_________________________________________________________________

Copyright (c) 2003 The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inc.


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